Blog

Henchman is a British company more widely known for its incredible wobble-proof ladders, especially for people who don’t always feel stable standing 12 rungs up a ladder cutting trees and such. If you want to read more on their tripod ladders here’s my guide – they are brilliant. However, it’s not just ladders they manufacture […]

It’s been a pretty erratic few months weather-wise here in the UK. Going from a heatwave in April to then Storm Hannah battering gardens. Not exactly ideal for tender plants and pricking out seedlings. However, by growing in a greenhouse and gardening without plastic I have at least managed to avoid any casualties so far! […]

The Exploding Atom Garden is based on a concept of the layers of an atom firing out from a red-hot core. To symbolise these layers, I’ve decided to use Gabions to represent the shards of this Garden Explosion. Given this garden uses very soft landscaping techniques for the borders and grass pathways, I felt it […]

Sowing seed is probably one of the most exciting parts of gardening. Ask any gardener or allotmenteer and seed selection then sowing is high on the list of favourite gardening activities. I’ve recently written a handy guide on how to sow seeds, so if you’re new to the seed sowing party maybe read that first […]

I’m a massive fan of Ornamental grasses in the garden, and fans of my work will see I incorporate them wherever I can. They require very little nutrition, will tolerate a number of soil types, and can provide interest for around 10 months of the year. Grasses look great in groups and can be used […]

So it turns out that life with plastic really ain’t that fantastic after all. Not given how little of it in the gardening world can be recycled, and most of it ends up in landfills, filling our earth with fragments of plastic that will take hundreds of years to fully break down. Ask any mindful […]

The Garden Media Guilds annual awards are a pretty star-spangled affair. Set in the Savoy (which have toilets that challenge the Bellagio in Vegas) its a celebratory event where journalists, photographers, producers, bloggers and other garden media folk gather to see who is crowned the winner in the categories. Social Media Influencer of the Year […]

If you’re wondering how to can attract more bees to your garden then you may not have thought of introducing a fruit tree.  At present, the UK is home to over 250 species of bee with the majority being solitary bee species. As well as increasing crop size and quality, bees play a pivotal role […]

High impact borders can bring the wow factor to your garden. It doesn’t matter whether you have a postage stamp sized garden or a few acres, the principles are the same. Here in the Exploding Atom Garden, I’ve been planting up what I’ve nicknamed the ‘Moody Goth Border’. The aim for this border is to […]

I must admit I was intrigued when I got an email out of the blue asking to come to see some community gardens up in Bury. It wasn’t just the offer of tea, slices of cake and seeing some beautiful borders; it was the fact that these gardens had been created from scratch only a […]