2011

Sincerest apologies for this rather Blue Peter, WI-ish subject matter. Normally, it would never have crossed my mind to devote an entire post to the making Christmas wreaths, but the recent subject coverage on Gardeners’ World and in most gardening glossies, leaves little choice. Not a question of jumping on the band wagon, but rather more an alternative to the always suggested quantity of gadgets (e.g. wire/natural/oasis rings) and material [...]

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 [...]

Leading on from Horticultural Renaissance of Wildflowers and Wildflower Fruit & Nut Case; An interview with Sarah Raven, this post collates the experienced advice of Sarah Raven, Peter Clay, Crocus co-founder, Richard Hopkins plant manager at Applegarth nurseries, Peter Chapman owner Perryhill nurseries and Paul Barney owner Edulis, on how to actually go about creating, or as is in our case, restoring, a wildflower meadow. They all generously agreed to [...]

Time to concede. The central heating is now on and warm wooly jumpers have made their comeback. Quite unbelievably, winter with its festivities is almost on our doorstep. The barrage of ‘merry’ adverts has long started, with vast ranges of seasonal wares ubiquitously on offer. Imminently, we’ll be treated to that pinnacle of seasonal delights; chronic Christmas jingles blaring from all places retail. Yet, despite the expeditious onslaught of colder [...]

Leading on from Horticultural Renaissance of Wildflowers, this is the second post in the series; the interview with Sarah Raven highlighting not only her passion for wildflowers, but their importance to the natural habitat; the countryside. Introducing Sarah Raven is pointless. Any serious gardener will know her for her skill in growing tantalising fruit and vegetables, pulling off colour combinations worthy of Christopher Lloyd, command of wild flowers and respective [...]

Intentions to restoring native wildflowers in our field & garden originated from Sarah Raven’s report on Gardener’s World back in 2008. Years, and many gardening projects later, plans for the field are still on the back burner.  However, talk of Raven’s new book on wildflowers rejuvenated plans. She kindly agreed to an interview, where she shared her passion, enthusiasm and vast knowledge on the subject. This is the first of [...]

Written by Liz Dobbs, ‘Keep Calm and Pot On: Good Advice for Gardeners’ is an endearing, linen-clad, pocket book, intended to provide good advice for gardeners. The iconic ‘Keep Calm and Carry on’ derived design certainly makes this an attractive option for many a Christmas stocking. Incidentally, the original poster, one of a series of three, created in 1939 to raise public moral on the eve of World War II, [...]

With the dogus in tow, one very determined gardener hustled down the motorway to attend the last open day of the year, at the renowned Crocus nursery. As Crocus is not open to the public, with sole access to their wares available online, the open days are normally a prominent fixture in my calendar. Our garden is simply chock-full of delightful Crocus horticultural offspring, and offspring thereof. Consequently, being able [...]

Encouraged by Rachel (thank-goodness-my-husband-wasn’t-watching) de Thame’s, notable report on Gardener’s World in early June, the Greenhouse borders were subjected to their first ever Chelsea Chop. Since, their infamous crew cut, progress has been carefully monitored by yours truly, to gauge the chop’s efficacy. No need to explain that this experiment has absolutely no lab coat & clipboard gravitas, though the results are interesting and will dictate next years approach. Just [...]