Escape the stress – festive and otherwise – with a midwinter project that weaves calm, control and creativity back into the season. Tight. Knotted. Coiled like a wound-up, corroding spring. Stuck. All too much. That’s where my mind is right now. It wasn’t a quick journey getting there, via the stress-fuelled frustration superhighway – but […]
For truly green renewable power, just look up – and put your walls to work. Everywhere I look these days there’s a familiar glint, whether it’s in a city, town, village or even out in flat, open countryside. The most common and familiar sparkle bounces off the roofs of our homes, especially the just-built ones, […]
As we head into an increasingly alarming and unpredictable future, we have a powerful ally standing ready to mitigate the impacts and build our resilience – we just need to mobilise its transformative potential. There’s trouble ahead – and I’m here to help. I hear you’re having a spot of bother facing up to the […]
Close your eyes and imagine: earth-friendly gardens are part of an interconnecting web of life stretching far beyond their bounds. If there’s one thing we gardeners excel at, it’s this: life. Sowing it, growing it, giving it, enriching and encouraging it, living alongside and being part of it – life is what we’re about. Being […]
As food prices rise and supply chains fray and snap, a radical new approach to work and income could free up time for many more of us to grow our own. I’m ready to scream. If I hear this phrase one more time, I will: ‘cost of living crisis’. There, I’ve typed it and I’m […]
Some like it hot – but unpredictable, climate change-fuelled spells of heat and humidity look set to play havoc with our under-cover crops. Hot, hot, hot – three heatwaves in a row, and we may not be done yet. This challenging trio has turned up the heat for gardeners everywhere. For those of us with […]
In an ever more unpredictable future, we’ll need all the intelligence at our disposal to unleash our greenhouses’ growing potential. The sign over the once boarded-up glass doors of our old supermarket read with intent: GrowSilience Community Launch – learn how YOUR greenhouse will help stock THIS place again. All welcome! The store had stuttered […]
Greenhouse? Kitchen garden beds? Ornamental borders? No – you need to look behind the scenes to find the beating heart of your garden. Answer me this: what takes old, fading life and reassembles it anew; brims with life, both macro and micro; offers sanctuary to fleeting, transient life; helps fuel and nurture life from scratch; […]
In and out, back and forth, to and fro: this is the season of ever-watchful gardeners and peripatetic plants. Blessed as I am to be able to work from home, these days more and more of my time is devoted to commuting – although I’m not to-ing and fro-ing for work, but for the love […]
Whether you’re planting a new garden, or filling out an established plot, bare-root perennials will deliver: they’re cost-effective, eco-friendly and raring to grow. It doesn’t take much to embark on a lifelong adventure in gardening. You might be a newbie with a builders-just-left-the-scene blank canvas, or be itching to make your own mark on a […]
In an increasingly uncertain world, food security is high on the national agenda – but sowing, growing and saving our own seed sparks a virtuous cycle that lets gardeners take back control. What if I told you that the adaptability and resilience we’ll need to navigate the growing uncertainties in a future of profound climatic […]
The dark days of winter are no time for fairweather friends – you need reliable, low-maintenance stalwarts to keep your greenhouse cropping through to spring Last September I sowed the seeds of a wintertime get-together for some old friends, whose company I knew I would relish from the darkening days of late autumn right through […]
