Lambeth Palace Gardens

As part of the RHS Level 3 course we have to learn about different garden design…

We’re back in business

So much happens in May, you blink and you miss it. When you open your eyes…

7 Chiswick Open Gardens in One Day! (NGS)

On Saturday 28 May 2016 Chris and I popped to west London to visit the four NGS…

24 Things at the Chelsea Flower Show 2016

This is my third year at the Chelsea Flower Show and it remains an emotional experience.…

7 Trends at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016

I’ll have more blog posts this week with my photos and thoughts from the Chelsea Flower…

Gallery: Chelsea Flower Show 2014 & 2015 recap

“People can only dream of a Chelsea Flower Show garden” they say. To that I say:…

Tulips – worth the bother?

This year I planted over 100 tulips. I love tulips. However, while they last for a…

11 Realities of Gardening in London

Either I’m inexplicably inept at gardening, or living in the big smoke is providing a world…

Tulips, planting out tomatoes early and seedlings

Tulips: the last two years I’ve tried growing some tulips and it went horribly wrong. Especially…

PHOTO GALLERY: Barbican Conservatory, London

Brutalist, futurist. Despite the concrete, the Barbican exudes such atmosphere and style that you’ll feel as…

Alan in Wonderland: East Ruston Old Vicarage

I knew East Ruston Old Vicarage in Norfolk would be special. What I hadn’t appreciated is…

Pot’s Growing On: April 2016

Someone pointed out I haven’t done an update about our own garden for a while, clearly I’ve…

My Allotment: Month 5

I’ve had my allotment since December and after a mountain of clearance, weeding, planning and seed…

Review: RHS The Half-Hour Allotment by Lia Leendertz

I was lucky enough to win The Half-Hour Allotment in a competition in the first months of…

Rousham: getting to the heart of landscape garden design

As I arrived at Rousham, the single other visitor was leaving and I had the entire place to…

Dividing a fern (Dryopteris filix-mas)

I want more ferns for our fern wall and some of our ferns are ripe for dividing. After…

The Future Jungle

Uh oh. Guys. I had a wave of inspiration about our garden on the walk home…

Grasses

In 2016 my two main plant experiments to improve my knowledge of gardening are going to…

March 2016: Allotment woe to propagation pro

March has to be up there in my top three favourite months of the year. Yes…

Getting to grips with grasses

In 2016 I want to get to grips with ornamental grasses. In particular, using them in mixed…

Fernatic: 50 fern species, 1 living wall!

Why we created a diverse 50 species collection of ferns on one modern living wall and how…

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…