We love to hear your stories, and will publish some of the best here on our blog.
Hedges – they’re not just for protection and privacy! Read Catharine Howard’s guest blog on the best uses for the humble hedge.
Catharine Howard is a designer, garden coach, the gardening editor of Essential Suffolk Magazine, and garden writer. Topics are anything to do with horticulture and the inspiration behind design. She lives and gardens in Suffolk. Catharine also contributes to ThinkinGardens, Guardian garden blog and IntoGardens.
Guest blogger Phillippa Lambert writes about growing Oca – a versatile and tasty vegetable.
Phillippa Lambert is a landscape designer based on the Isle of Wight at a unique site in the Undercliff of the Island — a favoured microclimate sheltered by enormous south facing cliffs. In 2002 Phillippa and Stephen Lambert came across the ‘lost’ gardens of a Victorian mansion dating back to the 1820s, managed to acquire part of the site, including the walled garden and ornamental lake, and have since worked on their restoration. The result is not an ‘expert’ garden and does not try for technical perfection in any sense. ‘Make do and mend’ is the keynote — most plants being raised from seed or cuttings— and self-sufficiency is the motivation for all the growing in the walled garden. In essence, this site goes back to the philosophy of ancient gardens in sustaining the body as well as the soul. Read more at Lakehouse Design.
Why grow veg? For me it’s ultimately about cooking, with the added incentive of being in nature in a way that I find enjoyable. It’s also better value, seasonal, greener and gives me a feeling of history, past and legacy. It’s about that sudden craving for dark spring greens during March or a taste for swede once the clocks have gone back.
Elizabeth is one of the Woolly Gardeners at Woolly Green. She recently moved out of London back to her roots in Devon because she loves sheep and to be nearer her family and friends. She knows she sounds like a Miss World contestant, but she really wants to leave things a bit better than she finds them 🙂
Guest blogger Michelle Storm writes a regular blog on increasing wild flower meadows in UK gardens and public spaces.
Michelle Storm, founder of Meadow Project, RHS qualified specialising in wildlife gardening and habitat creation.
I’ve always been in love with snowdrops. For as long as I can remember. It might have something to do with the fact that they are the harbinger of spring. The first signs that the sleeping garden is starting to wake again from its winter slumber. After several months of drabness, and no colour, the pure green of the snowdrop stems, particularly obvious when they come poking through real snow, is such a joy to the heart of any gardener. They seem so fragile, so tiny, but yet they are strong enough to push their way through the heavy snow, or through the cold earth to find their way into the rays of the winter sun.
I’m a 30 year old, writer, photographer, gardener, and sweetpea obsessive! I did a degree in English Literature at The University of Liverpool, and when I am not writing I’m often found in my garden.
Deborah has also written gardening articles for The Herts Advertiser
With excitement and well drawn plans of the new year, I began 2012 with aspirations of extending my vegetable growing knowledge and growing some good crops at home in my small garden. Still a beginner and only in my second year of anything garden related… ever, I wanted to have another go at growing tomatoes, introduce some beans and grow some potatoes in bags.
Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.
Guest blogger Carole Patilla writes about her love of all things artichoke!
I’m a former finalist in BBC Gardener of the Year and now a Birmingham event, wedding, funeral florist and flower grower. I love growing my own fruit, veg and flowers and you can follow my gardening adventures at Tuckshop Flowers. Listed in the ‘Top 20 most creative florists’ (Daily Telegraph).
I am a keen amateur gardener living in the East Midlands. During the day I work in an office so I love the times I can get outside. I would not call myself an expert gardener but I am an avid learner. I have been writing a blog based on my garden and gardens that I have visited for nearly two years now and it is something I really enjoy doing. It has added an extra dimension to how I view my garden.
UK No: 1 Garden Blog 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017 (Vuelio)
Garden Media Guild Blog of the Year 2019 winner.
Guest blogger Deborah Catchpole writes about her early and formative gardening experiences…
I’m a gardener. There; I’ve said it. It’s not always the first thing that a 28 year old is willing to admit, but for me, it’s something that has come to define who I am – or at least a huge part of who I am. Considering the upbringing that I had, it is perhaps unsurprising that I would have turned out to be a gardener.
I’m a 30 year old, writer, photographer, gardener, and sweetpea obsessive! I did a degree in English Literature at The University of Liverpool, and when I am not writing I’m often found in my garden.
Deborah has also written gardening articles for The Herts Advertiser
I became a blogger just over 12 months ago when I started my own blog entitled
I am a 51 year old retired public servant and living by the sea in Hampshire with my husband of 22 years, a 10 month old chocolate labrador named Gibson and three hens, Margot, Babs and Geri. My hobbies are gardening which I hope I will eventually become more accomplished at, walking and reading and I volunteer at a local Hospice which gives me an enormous amount of pleasure.