Can you afford to maintain your garden? What to consider

December 15, 2013

I have been thinking about my garden’s pros and cons and whether it suits me given my current limitations, having been ill and then not been fit for 15 years. It’s a high-maintenance flowerful wildlife-friendly country garden. What made me think more than usual about it was the upcoming cost of putting in a new […]

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Pond Wars – or how I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Pond!

September 10, 2013

My pond has added greatly to the benefits of being in my garden – it’s a constant source of interest. This has, however, come with a few ups and downs, even serious battles, with all aspects of pond creation. Here are a few tales of my pond wars.. 1. Building the pond The gardener I […]

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Our open gardens weekend

July 16, 2013

Wappenham held its open gardens event last weekend. What fantastic weather for it! The previous event was spoilt by rain. Just as well it was fine, as there were many gardens open and many other events, including luscious ‘Gilbert Scott’ teas (Gilbert Scott was brought up in the village, and has designed some houses and […]

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The Joy of Pinning – how to find more inspiration for your garden

April 18, 2013

I have just become converted to Pinterest.  It’s a great source of ideas for your garden, including design, planting, features – anything you can find in a photo that is about gardening.  Here’s how to start using Pinterest, and some of its benefits. Using Pinterest 1.  Sign up to the Pinterest site (http://pinterest.com/) and go […]

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Ivy – curse or blessing?

February 19, 2013

It’s about time to start talking about the new gardening year, with  bulbs coming up and seeds to sow.  But first, an issue I’ve been mulling over: is ivy a good thing? For years I’ve assumed ivy is great for my country garden, and I’ve let it go wild in the hedges, in the shady […]

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Big Garden Birdwatch coming soon

January 17, 2013

This is a reminder about the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch, a simple survey happening next weekend (26-27 January 2013) where you count the birds of each type in your garden during one hour. It’s become the world’s largest wildlife survey over the past 30 years and the results are very valuable to scientists. For more […]

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Shoot – the website for gardeners, and their friends..

December 21, 2012

I now have a ‘store front’ for planting plans on the Shoot website. Shoot is a great resource for gardeners. You can put your own garden plan up on the site, together with what plants you have and want, find out about plants from their comprehensive database, and get plant maintenance tips. Now Shoot have […]

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Unexpected Pleasures

August 31, 2012

Sometimes the garden tells you what to grow, rather than the other way round. I made a little spring corner in my front garden, next to a bench. The idea was to toddle down from the front door (the house is on a slope which falls across the front) to sit and appreciate flowers and […]

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Wild garden update: foxgloves

July 10, 2012

Planting the foxglove seedlings en masse in the shade of the apple tree really worked. I didn’t have the labour to weed, but despite this it has looked good for the whole time of the foxgloves flowering. They sway dramatically in the wind as you can see from these two photos! I’ve put in a […]

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My wild and wildlife garden

June 4, 2012

I have to confess that as a garden designer my garden is nothing like what I design. Because I am not yet fit enough to garden myself, I pay someone else to do mowing and some weeding, but a lot of the time the beds look after themselves. This year I even left the area […]

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