Books/ Media

Following in the footsteps of prissy party-planning Pippa Middleton, our very own Alan Titchmarsh has signed a deal with the nation’s smartest supermarket, and is hence forth to become the face of the new Waitrose gardening range. The nation’s most famous gardener, has been reeled in by the supermarket chain, to develop and launch their new gardening product line, write articles in their magazine, feature on their website, and to [...]

What horse meat scandal? Welcomed with a steamy slice of scalded (beef) lasagna for lunch, the good folks, that are the garden media, congregated at the annual Garden Press Event at the Barbican in London, to peruse all that is new and exciting in horticulture retail. Retailers have been busy; new product launches, diversification of product lines, and cunning marketing strategies. Horticultural retail is buzzing… Start ‘em early Retailers have [...]

Gone are the days when, the ‘good enough’, static, one-dimensional, brochurial website was enough to satisfy consumer expectations. The game has fundamentally changed. Fueled by ever more users, faster omnipresent connections, social media, secure (and trusted) payment systems, and a multitude of smart devices, digital commerce has become a key vehicle for business revenue growth. So where, you ask is the garden retail industry in terms of its online commercial [...]

How is it, that despite unprecedented availability and effortless access to a substantial information resource that is new (social) media, in particular (garden) blogs and Twitter, mainstream media are still so off the mark when assessing and/or addressing target audience interests? This week saw the inconceivable return of Ground Force, in its newly fangled ‘Love Your Garden’ format, featuring Alan Titchmarch and Mr David ‘feed your plants Coca Cola’ Domoney. [...]

Even beyond the boundaries of the showground, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show always manages to create incredible buzz and excitement, about all things gardening. Every year, after the show, the urge to get into the garden is overwhelming and unfortunately so too, is the urge to acquire every (new) favourite plant seen at the show. A handful of rather clever people have managed to harness the energy surrounding the show, [...]

Garden history tends to revolve around the gardens and their gardeners, yet little is written about the plants that actually make those gardens. The humble plant, be it a common Narcissus, or blowsy peony is simply drenched in history, with Egyptians, Hugenots, Aztecs, Ottomans all thrown into the mix. Clare Foster’s book entitled, Painterly Plants, is a marvel. Meticulously documented and beautifully photographed by Sabina Rüber, Foster reveals the intriguing [...]

Through the throng of garden press, a rather determined elderly gentleman worked his way towards me at last week’s Garden Press Event. ‘Are you the tall lady I am to meet to discuss this?’, he inquired whilst feverishly pointing to an edition of Garden Centre Update (GCU) magazine. Unfortunately, qualifying only on the ambiguous height requirements, he swiftly moved on. Only, as later revealed in various discussions on the trade [...]

Just beyond the vibrant Greenhouse borders stand our nemeses; two enormous Leylandii. Initially planted over fifty years ago as a quick fix replacing demised Yew trees, they’re now as dear to us as Asbestos. Screening they certainly provide and evergreen they may be, but it’s their incessant desiccating of all that’s good in the soil, that creates such problems, especially for the few audacious plants around and underneath them, struggling [...]

On hearing him say ‘When it comes to strawberries, I like the bit just below the skin’, one could be forgiven for thinking Toby Buckland, a blue-sky sort of man. However, just forty minutes of conversation revealed an erudite, practical gardener, whose knowledge is far more profound than ever divulged on television. From widespread press coverage, it’s clear that the Buckland PR drive has been rather successful, as most will [...]

It all started with a very dishy pair of secateurs…. Through his Japanese garden tool business, I first came across sculpto-anything-green man; Jake Hobson. Trained as a sculptor, Hobson developed his fascination for Japanese tree pruning to his distinctive naturalistic east-meets-west, free-form pruning style. Some may remember his brief appearance on Carol Klein’s Life in a Cottage garden series, where he was commissioned to cloud prune the newly established box [...]