Big Dreams, Small Spaces

In 2015 we took part in series two of the BBC’s Big Dreams, Small Spaces presented…

Dahlia experiment: cultivars put to the test!

In late 2013 I discovered Dahlias. As unbelievable as that might sound to gardeners who have grown…

Big Dreams, Small Spaces Diary: A Cat’s View

Miaow there, My name’s Rumbles, short for Mr Rumbleson Aria Wallington-Anderson. I wanted to tell you my…

Big Dreams, Small Spaces: Photo Gallery

These photos were all taken during the filming of Big Dreams, Small Spaces (2015).

The Plant & Flower Database 2015

While we had dreams of a little Victorian neon jungle of a garden, my main personal…

Big Dreams, Small Spaces Diary 4: Finished! (Late Summer)

To cut to the chase, we did it. We had a silly dream that meant everything…

Big Dreams, Small Spaces Diary 5: Autumn – after the show finished

After the show was over we were sad to see everyone go. It was so much…

Big Dreams, Small Spaces Diary 3: Summer (June – August)

June was a pretty great month for the garden. All of the ground work was done, things…

Big Dreams, Small Spaces Diary 2: Spring (March – May)

With the start of March came the news we were in! Big Dreams, Small Spaces was…

Big Dreams, Small Spaces Diary 1: Winter (January – Feb 2015)

In 2015 we took part in Big Dreams, Small Spaces. Find out how it all happened…

Big Dreams, Small Spaces: The Plan

This page summarises the ‘what’ and ‘why’ behind the dream for our Victorian London botanist inspired, overgrown neon jungle of…

Photo Gallery: My favourite garden design inspiration from my travels

This gallery contains a selection of my favourite garden design from 2014 and 2015. Photos are…

Pot’s Growing On in January: indoor plants, seed catalogues and preparation

January is the time to get organised, wash pots carefully to kill nasties, enjoy browsing the…

My Allotment: month 1 – preparation and planning

I’ve had access to my allotment for a month now giving me time to assess it,…

Top 6 Best Bee Magnet Flowers of 2015

One of my top priorities for 2015 was to have a garden grown as a nature reserve,…

My Allotment: Weeding

Today I had my first proper session at the allotment and I’d say that for the…

I have an allotment!

After a year of trying, this has all happened quite quickly: I have an allotment! 125…

Book Review: Plant Lover’s Guide to Salvias

I can’t remember when or how I discovered Salvias, but last year I bought a few…

All hail Helleborus niger leaves!

Back at the start of 2014, when my love of gardening ignited and shot off like…

November

MASSIVE tidy up this weekend! The building work is almost finished and for the first time…

8 tips for buying a Christmas tree

Christmas trees are brilliant. However the way they are sold can be a bit wasteful, cost…

Planting spring bulbs – tulips, snowdrops, fritillaria and alliums

This year I’m planting my spring bulbs for the spring White Garden in three stages:

Autumn at Kew Gardens

It feels like Kew Gardens is upping its garden design efforts – or perhaps I’m just…

Pot’s Growing On in October 2015? Bulb planting, removing plants and adding new ones!

As the nights draw in and the temperatures turn colder, there’s a sudden sense that the…

Pot’s Growing On: cuttings to overwinter

Today I took softwood cuttings of a few plants in order to overwinter them more easily…

A reason why the London Garden Bridge might be a good thing

The London Garden Bridge is fairly hotly debated. On the face of it, a tree lined…

Solenostemon scuttelarioides (aka Coleus)

Victorian’s freakin’ loved a lot of plants. They thought plants were cool. Because plants are cool.…

Planting Galanthus nivalis bulbs (Snowdrops)

Today I planted 50 x Galanthus nivalis (snowdrop) bulbs and 9 x Fritillaria meleagris ‘Alba’ bulbs.…

Book Review: Succession Planting for Adventurous Gardeners by Christopher Lloyd

As a novice gardener, there are gardening concepts we all struggle with (dappled shade vs light…

Avoid damping off during indoor propagation

If I can offer any tips for indoor propagation on a small scale, it’s do a small…

Review: Garland Super 7 electric heated windowsill propagator

To keep this review simple: it works, it’s £25, buy it. If you want to know more,…

Planning the winter/spring white garden

Last year I attempted a ‘spring white garden’. Bit of a disaster. I was aiming for white…

Whoops, bought two mini succulents

Uh oh, what’s going on here? Two little succulents seem to have popped into my bag…

Review: Garland Grow Light Garden

Being an impatient so and so occasionally, last winter I couldn’t wait to get sowing and…

One amazing gardening year

Warning: look away now if you don’t want to read self-reflective pointless twaddle. Exactly a year…

Book Review: RHS Complete Gardener’s Manual

Without doubt, the RHS Complete Gardener’s Manual is one of the best bargains I’ve picked up…

Review: RHS Encyclopaedia of Plants and Flowers by Christopher Brickell

The RHS Encyclopaedia of Plants and Flowers is what you call a tome. It is vast.

Review: The Complete Gardener by Monty Don

The word ‘complete’ has never been so accurately used. What I love about Monty Don is…

National Dahlia Society Annual Show 2015 & RHS Dahlia Trials

I returned to the National Dahlia Society’s Annual Show today after being totally gobsmacked last year. Though…

Vine weevil menace returns to Clapham!

They’re back! Those little notch mark bites on your otherwise lovely leaves. Yep, it must be…

Passed my RHS Level 2 exams!

In September 2014 I started my RHS Level 2 Course with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh,…

Where did August go?!

Sorry for a lack of updates about our garden recently, I’ll have stuff to share later…

Regent’s Park a high summer stunner

I can’t be very observant. I’ve been visiting Regent’s Park my whole life but only paid…

Xylem and phloem

Noticed this amazing slice of tree trunk on our bathroom door, perfectly capturing the xylem and…

NGS 2015 – one of the greatest things to hit British summertime

Quite unexpectedly, one of the highlights of my year snuck up on me and I now…

Sissinghurst & Monks House – intertwined lives endure in the gardens

We visited Vita Sackville-West’s Sissinghurst Castle and Virginia Woolf’s Monks House on separate days during our…

Great Dixter – a garden outside of time

Stepping onto Great Dixter soil is like stepping into a dream world of wispy, airy meadows,…

Nymans, Hayward’s Heath

On Sunday 5th July, we visited Nymans, one of the four famous gardens featured in the…

A walk on the South Downs at dusk

It started with a lama and ended with an allotment of Delphiniums, with wildflower meadows and…

Standen House, East Grinsted

On the first morning of our summer holiday in Sussex we were diverted by rain from Wakehurst…