There is now an updated list with over 70 nurseries across the UK which can be accessed here... This list is no longer updated. While the Amazon rainforest burns, Brexit festers and children all over the world call on adults to join their strike to highlight the climate catastrophe, it can be hard to know … Continue reading Save Our Rainforests: The Peat-Free Nurseries List
Many of us owe our love of plants, gardens and wildlife to early experiences in childhood. Even on a small scale, places that enable young people to connect with the natural environment can begin a relationship that lasts a lifetime. At a time when we need the younger generation to understand, cherish and protect the … Continue reading Year of Green Action Garden at RHS Hampton Court
1. Wildflower Power Everywhere you turn at this year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show, indigenous trees, shrubs and perennials are interpersed with native biennial and annual wildflowers. The gardens are awash with hornbeam, birch, willow, yew, guelder rose, cow parsley, foxglove, ragged robin and sedum. The pinks of red campion and ragged robin are particularly conspicuous … Continue reading 5 Environmentally-Friendly Ideas to Take Home from the RHS Chelsea Flower Show
During the People's Walk for Wildlife and the rewilding conference in Cambridge last year, I learnt in disbelief about the dramatic declines in insect, bird, mammal and wild plant populations since the 1970s - the decade in which I was born. This year I have resolved to put nature at the heart of our garden … Continue reading What Nest Box Where?
Last month I wrote Why Nature Matters: In Our Gardens and Our Countryside exploring the inextricable links between gardens and the wider landscape - with all the benefits and responsibilities this entails. As we become increasingly aware of the direct effect of our collective actions on the environment, complex issues such as the use of plastic, … Continue reading Peat Bog Restoration: Protecting Ecosystems and Limiting Climate Change
in Just- spring when the world is mud- luscious... … Continue reading Why Nature Matters: In Our Gardens and Our Countryside
Visitors to BBC Gardeners World Live have a busy, exciting show ahead of them this year. With 10 show gardens, 6 smaller gardens, more than 20 beautiful borders and over 100 stands selling plants and gardening equipment, the show will provide inspirational ideas for everyone to take home. Inspiration is everywhere at this year's show Made … Continue reading BBC Gardeners World Live – All About Inspiration
The speckled flowers of Clematis cirrhosa ‘Freckles’ and its creamy white counterpart ‘Jingle Bells’ are twining along the bare apple espaliers with some intrepid stems nearly reaching the ground. I planted the clematis by the post closest to the dining room window so that we could see it from the table and judging by the … Continue reading Creating A Winter Garden (Part 1)
Ten years ago I went on the allotment waiting list. Local sites are heavily oversubscribed and I was expecting a substantial wait. Five years later, with one small child and another on the way I decided to come off the list as allotmenteering seemed unfeasible in the blur of family life. Instead we worked on … Continue reading Allotment Beginnings
Earlier this year I decided to focus on pollinators at the school summer fete plant stall and since then I've been a little obsessed with growing and learning about plants which give our pollinators a helping hand. I've been raising a small army of dwarf sunflowers from seed (Helianthus annus 'Little Leo' and 'Waooh!'), dividing garden plants … Continue reading The Bee’s Knees