I’m often asked for advice on visiting gardens in the UK.The National Garden Scheme opens gardens around England and Wales to raise money for a range of charities. While grander gardens often open for a special NGS day, the main strength of the scheme is that it encourages beautiful small…
Edimentals is a new term for growing flowers and vegetables together. Gardens today are often too small to have a separate ‘veg patch.’ Of course, traditional vegetable growing won’t fit into your herbaceous border. If you plant a row of carrots beside your roses, you’ll have a gap when you…
A contemporary cottage garden fuses traditional cottage style with ‘naturalistic planting’, according to garden designer, Tim Pilgrim. ‘It uses common plants – both edible and ornamental – as in traditional cottage garden planting, but planted in larger drifts. And there’s more thought to colour palette and repetition,’ he says. He’s…
We all have ‘difficult garden areas‘ or spaces we want to revamp without re-designing the whole garden. It may be a corner where nothing wants to grow. Or a space which just seems to attract clutter. You could term it a ‘garden dead zone.’ If a shed has rotted or…
A tree is often the biggest feature in a garden. Prune your trees well, and it lifts the whole space—bringing in light, structure and beauty. But prune a tree badly, and you risk creating a dark, messy, unkempt garden with trees that grow back even larger – and thicker –…
Leave the leaves is the new gardening mantra. It appeals to me more than getting out a leaf blower or a rake,then bagging up leaves and finding somewhere to store them. They will break down into valuable leaf mould but they take their time – sometimes it is several years…
Garden border maintenance in both autumn and spring is mainly about the plants. Summer and early autumn is for dead-heading. Weeding goes on all year round if you have a mild climate. Watering is for dry spells. But in both autumn and spring, it’s time to plant new plants, move…
Kathy and Stuart Pickering created their rustic cottage garden in a stretch of field. And you can use the same techniques to turn an empty lawn into a haven of colour and scent, filled with butterflies and birdsong. Their space is equivalent to a long, narrow town garden, measuring around…
Gardening for biodiversity means gardening with nature rather than trying to control it. And it’s caused a revolution in our gardening rules. Firstly, it means less work for you. A few years ago, you would have been advised to scatter slug pellets, take your leaves to the local tip and…
I’m always being asked for ideas for breaking up the space in a shallow wide garden. Many people also want to know how to make it look longer. Many houses today are being built on small, individual plots. Gardens are getting smaller and they’re often shallow or odd wedge-shapes. So…
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