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What I find surprising is how many gardeners spend a significant amount of money on plants and tools but use a folded-up cardboard box as a kneeling pad. Your knees are irreplaceable. A good garden kneeler costs between £10 and £40 and will serve you for years. That is a straightforward investment in long-term gardening […]

Quick Answer The best orange flowers for UK gardens include Crocosmia ‘Emberglow’, Helenium ‘Moerheim Beauty’, Geum ‘Totally Tangerine’, and Kniphofia for summer and autumn impact, with Tulipa ‘Princess Irene’ and Wallflowers delivering spring colour. Choose from trees, shrubs, climbers, perennials, annuals, and bulbs to achieve orange flowers from March right through to October. Orange spans […]

Quick Answer Scarify your lawn in early autumn (September to October) once the grass is growing well but weed pressure is falling. Mow short first, set blades 2 to 3mm into the soil, make two passes at 45 degrees to each other, then overseed immediately at 15 to 35 grams per square metre and water […]

Every time I visit a new garden client for the first time, I do the same thing before I look at a single plant or design element. I pick up a handful of soil and feel it. I look at what is already growing there, both the plants people have chosen and the weeds that […]

Compaction is the silent killer of UK lawns. It happens gradually, almost invisibly, through nothing more dramatic than regular foot traffic, the weight of a mower going back and forth, and the natural settling of soil over time. By the time you notice the symptoms, including waterlogging after rain, patchy moss colonies, and grass that […]

I have overseeded dozens of lawns over my career, both in my own garden and on client projects. The results never fail to impress. A lawn that looked beyond saving in March, with bare patches, thin coverage, and that general air of defeat that sets in after a hard UK winter, can look genuinely lush […]

Quick Answer The best pink flowers for borders include Japanese anemones, penstemons, and hardy geraniums for long summer colour, camellias and magnolias for spring drama, clematis and roses for vertical impact, and nerines for autumn interest. With the right plant selection you can have pink flowers in your garden from February all the way through […]

April is the month where the garden stops waiting and starts delivering. This is the busiest sowing and planting month in the entire UK gardening calendar, and if you know what to do and when, you can set yourself up for an absolutely cracking summer. I genuinely love this month, Ninjas. The seed packets come […]

Silty soil is one of the most fertile and productive growing mediums available, holding moisture and nutrients in a way that suits an enormous range of plants from bold perennials and structural grasses to productive fruit and vegetables. Quick Answer The best plants for silty soil in the UK include Iris sibirica, Astilbe, Rudbeckia, Phlox […]

With the right plant choices, they can host some of the most dazzling, naturalistic planting schemes imaginable. As an RHS-qualified garden designer with over twenty years of experience, including gardens on some of the driest, sandiest plots in the UK, I can tell you that the secret is simply working with what you have rather […]