Garden Advice

Updated 2020: The soil type that you have in your garden can make or break your plans for a successful garden design.  Your plants will only be as successful as the preparation and planning that you, the gardener puts in! Rather than thinking of soil as dirt, you need to start treating it as the life force […]

This guide will show you how to make an easy compost bin from wooden pallets. This is by far the easiest method I have used over the years. Even with a small garden, if you have enough space for a wooden palette it’s worthwhile creating a compost bin. You not only save on those dreadful […]

Updated 2020: We have all been there as new gardeners, watching your plants grow and get bigger each year, caring for their every need to be rewarded with flowers or gorgeous foliage. Then there is that moment, you don’t know when it happened but you look at the plant no longer looks full of the […]

Long before online shopping and plants by mail; splitting and dividing plants was one of the best ways of propagating your garden plants. It’s also been used for years as a way to help share and spread plants amongst communities without having to grow new plants slowly from seed. Furthermore, by getting down and dirty […]

Updated 2020: Garden lawns are probably one of the most widely recognised garden design components. Turf has a huge variety of uses if you want to lounge on a deck chair on it, manicure it to perfection, get your mates round to have a BBQ on it or even as a football pitch for your […]

Scarification of a lawn is often used to revitalise and keep an existing lawn in check. Scarification involves using a machine, a bit like a lawnmower but much sharper, that has a rotating set of blades that slice down into the topsoil. This acts to both cut the grass rhizomes, drag out debris and furrow […]

I’m a big fan of recycling and upcycling in the garden. It’s so easy to buy things online but there’s something really satisfying in making your own fire pit out of reclaimed materials. This creates a one of a kind bespoke fire pit which will really set your garden alight! If you want to build […]

June is the month in the garden where nearly everything is looking its best. Roses should now be in full bloom (especially if you’ve followed my rose pruning guide in the winter), ornamental grasses will be swaying in the breeze and your herbaceous perennials will all be bursting into flower. It’s typically a month where […]

Flower beds and borders are the staple of any garden and they come in all shapes and sizes! I get asked all the time for help when it comes to garden designing and planting flower beds. Given there are endless opportunities it can seem overwhelming as to where to start? My top 3 flower bed […]

Plants are incredibly tough things but during heat waves and summer they may need a bit more assistance in the hydration department. If you’ve recently planted new shrubs, trees or herbaceous plants then you’re going to have to help them out by watering them until they are established. Top 10 Garden Water Saving Hacks If […]

When I first started gardening many moons ago I never saw the importance of sharpening tools like secateurs. How bad can pruning cuts be from a less than perfect set of secateurs? Well pretty bad in my experience early on in my career. After using blunt snips on one poor shrub I subsequently lost it […]

A gardens aspect is one of the first things I do when I’m working on new garden designs. If you ignore it you will struggle to find the correct plants, choose the best seating areas, plan paths that aren’t for example shady, damp and slippy. When designing and planting, you can accommodate virtually any aspect if […]

I’m a glass half full kinda guy. I try to refuse, where possible, to let myself end up in negative cycles. The media, in particular, like to theme January as the month of personal debasement. To try and amplify the parts of your life you’re not happy with. So much so there’s now a Blue […]

It’s a sad fact that an area the size of the UK is being lost each year worldwide to deforestation. Trees are being felled and cut down at an alarming rate. Now even local UK councils are stealth tree felling claiming that their ‘maintenance’ costs outweigh trees environmental benefits. It’s all too easy for homeowners […]

We seem to have a bit of an issue with pruning as gardeners. I remember when I first started gardening that the thought of cutting off parts of the plants I’d spent ages nurturing felt horrific. I let them grow however and wherever they wanted. Just grateful they were growing. However, this laissez-faire approach always […]