I’ll be celebrating 12 gardening days this Christmas, but not all in one go – and not in the usual way. I’m breaking with seasonal tradition: instead of counting down the 12 days of Christmas, I’m planning to spread a dozen ‘green’ days out across the coming winter months. My 12 days are more to […]
We urgently need ambassadors for a different way of gardening. Could the Royal Horticultural Society’s appointment of a 10-year-old signal a sea change?
Walls, terraces, paths, steps, soil, compost, wildlife habitats… second-hand and spoil heap slate can give you the makings of an entire garden. Bar the dreaming and hard graft, my garden owes its existence to an ancient and, given its dour demeanour, quite magical ingredient. It’s very tangible, and it’s very heavy. Its straight lines run […]
‘Keep quiet and grow on’ simply isn’t tenable any longer. What we do in our gardens does make a difference to climate change – for better or for worse. It needs a snappier name for sure, but Gardening and Climate Change Day might be just what we need to snap us out of the comatose […]
There’s an effective response to the savage treatment of roadside verges by local authorities: say it with flowers. Revenge, the saying goes, is a dish best served cold. I’m not the only gardener to have looked on aghast at the treatment that’s been meted out to the wild flowers (not to mention the wildlife) along […]
Real change in the way we garden will only come about when we break through the communication failure between the vocal earth-friendly minority and the quiet majority who keep on buying chemicals. When does change come? When do we look around and see it with our own eyes? When can we feel it in the […]
Earth-friendly plant protection is a finely judged art, but with a little ingenuity you can thwart the pests while providing safe passage for pollinators. Now it begins. Yellow daggers wait poised and patient at the doors. Sharp claws wrench blood-curdling screeches from the glass. Sets of vicious, hazelnut-honed incisors pluck and twang at the wire […]
When neonicotinoid pesticides were developed back at the turn of the 21st century, did nobody realise what would happen to the wildlife that ingested them? ‘Right, Holly – give it a good whack!’ As the tremor shuddered along the oak’s boughs, green blobs fell to earth, and startled blue tits fled to higher branches. Some […]
Earth-friendly gardeners are committed to composting all organic matter – so why not extend the principle to our own remains? An innovative ‘deathcare’ project in Seattle is developing a better way for gardeners to go. Of all the things that please me about my modest home, the one I take most delight in is the […]
Like every man-made structure, a greenhouse has an embedded ecological cost – the inspiring difference being that with a greenhouse, you get the chance to clear the debt. These days nudging each side of the spring equinox – when day and night match each other in length – are for me among gardening’s headiest. March’s […]
There is an easier middle way between the effort of traditional composting and the specialised requirements of a wormery: invite the worms into your regular bin, and let them do the work. Of all the ongoing experiments and trials in my garden, the longest-running, most revealing and ultimately most fruitful are those around compost-making. I’m […]
If reason and persuasion don’t work, we need to start hitting the less ethical elements of the gardening industry where it hurts: below the profit margin. Yes, you read that right: it’s time for us to start revolting. Unless you subscribe to the against-the-clock, TV makeover, artificial, fashion-fickle version of gardening, you’ll know that it’s […]
