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Just over a year after my first meeting with Alex, her new garden is built and planted up. And, of course this is where the fun starts. Waiting for spring for all the bulbs to emerge, heralding the start of a new gardening year in a brand new garden. Alex had inherited a garden of… Continue reading Designing a garden

I’ve read a wonderful book.  I’m not a big reader, unlike some people in this household. It was passed on to me by the ‘Big Reader’ who sleeps next to me. Tossed casually onto the bed between us. ‘I think you’ll like this’ he said. No more explanation, no exhortation. Just a gentle nudge. This… Continue reading Do The Right Thing

For me September always seems to be the end and the start of something. I think it stems from childhood. September - end of holidays, starting a new year at school. New haircuts, new school clothes. Saying goodbye to holiday freedoms, later bedtimes, flexible mealtimes. The end of warm, languorous days and evenings, the start… Continue reading September Beginnings

15th June It’s Saturday of Gardener’s World Live at the NEC Birmingham. I am sitting in the big van I hired to transport all the plants and gubbins to the show. We woke to sun but it has now clouded over again and is threatening more rain. The weather has been challenging for the outside… Continue reading Gardeners’ World Live 2

My garden is a nursery at the moment. The terrace is awash with pots and we all tip toe round them to get into the garden. I am like a mother hen clucking away checking on their growth, willing some to start showing signs of flowers and despairing that others have flowered and gone to… Continue reading Gardeners World Live

It’s all about the greens at this time of year. Spring greens are the most wonderful sight to behold. There is colour in the garden but that is mainly provided by the spring bulbs, the last of the daffodils and the colourful array of tulips. Pink Honesty and Lamprocapnos (Bleeding Heart) are also rather showy… Continue reading Spring Greens

We all have a bit in our garden which is in the shade. The bit that faces north and gets less light than the other parts. My heart used to sink when I thought about my shady border. What on earth could I plant in the shade of the fence and then when next door’s… Continue reading Shady Days

It is easy to get very glum about the state of our world.  Every day there is news that makes one feel helpless. I have had my own few weeks of feeling like there is nothing I can do to change things and that in fact, with my new career choice, I have thought I… Continue reading Positive Thoughts

I’ve been ill. I’m not a sickly person. The occasional light cold, a low-level, non-specific viral something every now and then but this has been a doozy. My lovely man went down with it. Temperatures of 101 three days in a row. Really laid low. I did the sensible thing and slept in the spare… Continue reading The Need To Sow

In these first weeks of the year, after the distraction of Christmas and the New Year, the summer feels a long way away. Warm, sunny days to laze about in the garden, friends round to enjoy a relaxing afternoon with a long, cool drink and a bbq, children playing in the sandpit or treehouse, these… Continue reading A Time To Plan