landscape and garden design in Clapham, London
How to guides and other tips, tricks and help gardening.
For the last month the voice of Sue Stuart-Smith has accompanied me on eleven and a half hours of car journeys to and from gar
I’ve been asked a lot over the last couple of years for an update on my Aeonium arboreum ‘Zwartkop’ and cutt
I thought I’d jot down some quick notes about how I am supporting the plants that need it on my allotment this year. Thi
The Gardener’s Book of Patterns, published for the RHS (out now) is a source book of ideas for any gardener interested i
One of the Persicaria we’re not judging on the RHS Persicaria Trial Forum is Persicaria orientalis because it’s an
I love rhubarb. I love its flavour and I love how easy it is to grow. I always recommend planting rhubarb before anything else
A group of plants I grow a lot in my own garden and in my clients’ garden designs is the perennial Salvias. Salvias are
Not everyone has a miniature water lily but they really should! Easy to grow in any still water at a depth of about 30 –
Supermarkets have plenty of food to see us all through the coronavirus (covid-19) but in the likely event of having to go thro
It wasn’t until I started growing my own vegetables I even clocked that purple sprouting broccoli existed. In the superm
We’re taught not to play with our food but WHATEVS, I love arranging veg to show them at their beautiful best before pre
I love leafy begonias with their wonderful patterns, colours and shapes. In fact, I can’t have enough of them. The only
Gardening Book of the Year 2019 – The Times10 Best Gardening Books of Spring 2020 – The IndependentBest Gardening
In my Telegraph column this week I highlighted a number of allotment and kitchen garden podcasts that are good for timely grow
One of my favourite things to do in the year is divide perennials in autumn. You can actually divide most perennials at any ti
The garden I’d love to visit the most at the moment is Dave Goulson’s… and not purely for his homemade cider
On our recent trip to Somerset Chris and I caught up with Charles Dowding and Stephanie Hafferty at the private mecca of no di
I’ve often written that in some ways growing dahlias well is the easiest thing in the world and by equal measure, tricky
Here’s my guide to pruning / pollarding a Cordyline australis: chop it down to whatever height you want and it will grow
I don’t know how it’s happened but I seem to have used up all of my pots and seed trays. I don’t feel I̵
Many trees and shrubs can be grown from hardwood cuttings, roses being one of the most common examples. Exactly as you’d
I was reading the BBC’s seven charts on climate change article and one major thing scientists say will offset increasing
When I first started going to garden events like RHS Chelsea Flower Show, the first thing I was drawn to was the begonia displ
For decades gardeners around the world have added crocks – broken bits of terracotta pot or polystyrene – to the b
Is it just me or are there fewer yellow dahlias at the National Dahlia Society Annual Show this year? “Bryn Terfel”
Many meadows have one problem: overly vigorous grasses. If soil is even a little too rich or too moist, grasses enjoy the cond
Here I show you the small aubergine plants I’ve been growing in pots at home and in a row on my allotment. I love them!
One of the first dahlias we grew was ‘Emory Paul’ and it’s come back every year better than ever. This year
Stepping out into our garden one morning this week was different. Not least because we had 1.2cm of rain last weekend, literal
Monarda didyma ‘Cambridge Scarlet’ can be seen flowering in our garden in the above photo (2015) and below (2018). This ye
When we open our garden for charity on the National Garden Scheme one thing people always comment on is our micro pond with it
Ah, waking up to summer in the city. The sound of sirens and drunk people ringing your doorbell at 5am birds chirping. You rea
A couple of years ago RHS Chelsea Flower Show was filled with a new flower, Lysimachia atropurpurea ‘Beaujolais’.
Like my 15 Sensational Plantings to Recreate from Chelsea article last year I’m hoping to breakdown the myth that you ca
I attended the Garden Press Event for the first time this year and it was a wonderful meet-up for the gardening bloggers, jour
If your garden doesn’t look something like the above right now, it’s time to act! Plan now to add a little sparkle
Over the last few years I’ve been growing Leonotis nepetifolia (thanks to Jonathan Gregson for correcting the species in
A year ago I experimented with nipping out the growing point of my Aeonium ‘Zwartkop‘ to make it branch. It w
It’s mid-November and some of our Dahlias in the garden are still flowering, just. This follows an absolutely epic windf
Hippeastrum (incorrectly called Amarylis by shops for some reason) are amazing indoor plants that flower in Winter / early Spr
If like me, you may have been coasting along on a post-summer ‘put your feet up’. Well, I’ve got news for yo
How to divide Pilea peperomioides to give to your friends and family while keeping the Pilea legend alive.
It’s usually around this time of year, just as our good ship The Garden puts its rockets into nitro that problems start
One of my bugbears around Chelsea time are the naysayers proclaiming the gardens are unrealistic and impossible to recreate at
Note: since the day I published this the heavens opened dumping over 4cm of water in 72 hours in south London. So for us at le
Month 13: my allotment has expanded a bit this year as I’ve taken on some unused adjacent plot. This is thick with grass
Last year I ordered a small Aeonium arboreum ‘Zwartkop’ from an independent nursery off of eBay. In the summer it
Earlier in the year Lia Leendertz and Mark Diacono popped over to talk about and photograph our indoor plants for their new bo
Between 2015- 2016 I put peat free compost to the ultimate test, I only used peat free compost for every single plant I grew.
I want more ferns for our fern wall and some of our ferns are ripe for dividing. After breaking the bank with our flat renov