I’m joined on this episode by the powerhouse of the garden design world that is Ann-Marie Powell, who tells me how her gardens abide by the mantra Plants, People, Place, while I ponder over matters of gratitude, privilege and responsibility, and how they manifest in my own gardening practice.
Read moreThe Gardens, weeds & words podcast, Series 2 Episode 10
Back behind the mic with my podcast buddy, in this episode I get to quiz garden writer Laetitia Maklouf about her latest book, The 5 Minute Garden, as well as delving into the secrets of her relationship with a HotBin composter.
Read moreThe Gardens, weeds & words podcast, Series 2 Episode 9
In this episode, I’m joined by copresenter of ITV’s Love Your Garden, Katie Rushworth. We discuss her Yorkshire roots,and what she believes to be the fundamental ingredients of a really good garden.
Read moreStihl RMA 443 TC cordless lawn mower
Lawn mowing season is well and truly here and this year, for reasons we’re all too familiar with, most of us are spending a lot more time in the company of the green stuff than would normally be the case. Having a reliable, quiet, and efficient mower is one of those things that makes the less glamorous aspects of being a garden owner less of a chore, and Stihl’s range of cordless electric machines delivers on all counts. I’ve been putting the RMA 443 TC through its paces.
Read morePeat free
With growing signs of the environmental damage caused by peat extraction on both a local and global scale, the quality and availability of peat-free growing mediums for both domestic gardeners and professional growers is on the up. At the same time, general awareness around the issue of peat in gardening products remains low. So why’s it taking so long?
Read moreThe Gardens, weeds & words podcast, Series 2 Episode 8
A chance to discuss our relationship to the land and the food it can produce with organic grower Claire Ratinon, whose urban veg growing exploits began on a New York rooftop and continued in London’s East End. I’m introduced the concepts of the “delectability of vegetables”, food-as-love, and what it feels like to be a grower of colour.
Read moreTea refuser
As a self employed gardener, you quickly learn to avoid two types of client. Firstly, those who evidently believe that paying for your services is discretionary. And secondly, those who never offer you tea.
Read moreSun catcher
It’s me. I am the sun catcher. I catch the sun. The minute the clouds part and those yearned-for, warming rays illuminate the scene and banish the gloom with the sun’s presence, I’m there. Catching it.
Read moreThe Gardens, weeds & words podcast, Series 2 Episode 7
If there’s one person who should know how to get kids gardening, it must be ex Blue Peter gardener, host of the Skinny Jean Gardener Podcast and author of a new book called exactly that. Lee Connelly joins me in this episode to talk about his work.
Read moreWind and smoke
I have an oddly conflicted relationship with the wind. At once stimulating, annoying and frightening, occasionally helpful and sometimes strangely comforting. We might learn that a body of air will move from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure, but that’s hardly an explanation that satisfies our enquiry. Why is the wind, we wonder, and where is it going?
Read moreWhat must our gardens think?
Five o’clock and it’s still light. Just. This is encouraging. This is... inspiring! If the weather hadn’t been so filthy today, I’d’ve been out there till the dark dropped, beavering away, tidying away, Getting Things Ready. But the thing is, I haven’t been, and the garden waits patiently for me to get back into the swing…
Read moreThe Gardens, weeds & words podcast, Series 2 Episode 6
The nature memoir is something of a publishing phenomenon just now – but I can’t imagine a time when I’ll weary of hearing about yet another book in which I get to read of another’s life experience set within the context of the natural world. In this episode, I talk to Alice Vincent about how she found the process of writing Rootbound. Rewilding a Life, and some of the key themes of the book.
Read moreRootbound. Rewilding a Life
Sometimes, good things have to fall apart, so that better things can fall together. Whether or not we can confidently attribute this insight to Marilyn Monroe, it’s particularly apt for this, the second book from Alice Vincent. Over the course of Rootbound, the life of the author unravels and then – to the rhythms of the natural world – knits back together, entirely stronger, stranger, and more wild.
Read morePushing through
I’ve been stuck in bed with the lurgy for several days, so getting back out into the garden this weekend has been a tonic. The long running saga of the Elusive Wheelbarrow Inner Tube Puncture having now been drawn to a satisfying resolution…
Read moreThe Gardens, weeds & words podcast, Series 2 Episode 5
How can gardening help, when the world appears to have gone mad, and half up in smoke? Alys Fowler joins me on the podcast where we grapple with the capacity of nature to heal us, and the responsibility we have to reciprocate.
Read moreDay 365: gardening into the new year
I catch myself in the ridiculous position of wishing time away, urging my garden to catch up with the images of other people’s snowdrops appearing day by day on my phone. It’s not a race. It’s not a competition of any sort…
Read moreDay 364: prayer plant
In the world of the houseplant enthusiast, a bicolour leaf seems to be far more greatly prized than such a thing would be in the parallel realm of the outdoor gardener, where variegation is often met with less than universal affection…
Read moreDay 363: poinsettia
Spurges generally don’t get to come into the house. They’re great in the garden – the architectural form of Euphorbia characias with its wonderful glaucous foliage…
Read moreDay 362: a mystery begonia
I love a Christmas mystery as much as the next person, but today’s has less to do with a body in the library and footsteps in the snow than it does the identity of one particular begonia…
Read moreDay 361: Betwixtmas
Christmas is wonderful, of course it is, but when the frenzy is done and the motorway miles have been reeled in, a kind of peace descends until the new year…
Read more