2012

With the onslaught of mince pies, winter sniffles, and the brusque end to I-am-a-celebrity-please-keep-them-there, Christmas is once again on our doorstep. Bring on all that camp and festive kitsch…. With the unforeseen popularity of last year’s Christmas Wreath post, and recent failure to win the @CliftonLondon’s twitter (@landscapeman’s lovingly crafted) wreath competition, I am left with little choice but to make my own again. As per usual, my wreaths are [...]

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 [...]

‘Do you know how good milk is with bay?’, queries the herb guru, Jekka McVicar. The sad truth is, no. Having known McVicar for quite a few years, read her books, heard her speak, seen her on television and visited her herb farm, she must be disappointed in my herb deficient cuisine. The garden is brimming with perennial herbs, but never has the Anise Hyssop been made into a sorbet, [...]

What would Christopher Lloyd be without Great Dixter? Vita-Sackville West without Sissinghurst? Lawrence Johnston without Hidcote? Gardeners make their gardens, but in turn too, gardens make the gardener. Without the legacy of her own incredible garden, the horticultural talent, that is Miss Ellen Willmott, has been forgotten, or simply diminished to the yarn of a prickly old lady who liked to scatter Eryngium giganteum seeds in gardens she visited. Respected [...]

Where gardens are ephemeral, kitchen gardens remain steeped in outdated conventions and seemingly have yet to enjoy true botanical democracy. Gone are the days, where kitchen gardens were the sole domain of the gardener and cook, yet in most gardens, including ours, the kitchen garden is still strictly segregated from the ornamental garden. The benefits of poly- and permaculture are widely known, yet we still prefer to grow produce in [...]

Plucky or preposterous, but I find myself incredulously in disagreement with the infinitely eminent Piet Oudolf. According to my garden guru, colour in the garden is only an added extra1. Quite remarkable, as his designs with their distinctively striking streams of colour are legendary. According to Oudolf, colour sets the mood in the garden, but remains a secondary dimension where good planting should be able to look interesting in a [...]

Unfamiliar with golf courses as I am, it never really occurred to me that they could be home to such extraordinary wildflower diversity. Serene botanising not quite on the minds of the three wheezing nutter labradors that hauled me gracelessly across Trevose golf course in North Cornwall; the result of my superbly defective plan for a gentle scenic stroll along with two keen golfers. Limited to ground level observation by [...]

Despite being an annual visitor, the intricate sweeping layout of the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show always proves problematic for my terrifically bumbling sense of direction. Attending the show is always a much anticipated event, but with the copious exhibit categories renamed and/or added every year, one can’t help but feel that similar sense of M&S frustration, where yet again some bright spark has shuffled the shelves around. Despite memories [...]

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. [...]

There really is no other way of saying it, this year the kitchen garden has been pants. Record breaking hot March weather, subsequent and unremitting torrential rain, persistent cold temperatures, fuming storms, in addition to exceptionally lethal slug vandalism and uncanny pigeon mutilation, amount to the perfect recipe for disaster. With the bulk of painstakingly grown produce mullered, and end of June nearing, one can’t help but wonder if there [...]