November 2011

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 [...]