Horticulture & Plant Ideas

These are plants with stories woven through Anglo-Saxon charms, Druid ritual, Tudor love spells, and the extraordinary tradition of floromancy, the art of reading the future in petals and blooms. What I love about this as a garden designer is that every single one of these plants earns its place on pure horticultural merit. They […]

Quick Answer To plant a successful flower bed, first choose your site and test your soil, then prepare the ground by removing weeds and adding organic matter. Design using three plant layers (ground cover, mid-layer, and tall), pick a unified colour scheme, and use repetition of plants in groups of three or five. The whole […]

Getting rid of fungus gnats can be a perpetual headache for houseplant owners. These tiny flies quickly disrupt the serene green oasis of our indoor space. These tiny, flying pests may be diminutive in size, but their impact is disproportionately felt. Fungus gnat larvae feast on plant roots and organic matter in damp soil, damaging […]

Quick Answer To look after an orchid, water every 7–14 days using the soak-and-drain method, never leaving it sitting in water. Position in bright indirect light away from direct sun. Feed monthly with specialist orchid fertiliser. Cut spent flower stems back to a node to encourage reblooming. Repot every two years in fresh orchid bark. […]

The plants on this list are the ones I return to again and again in my own garden designs because they deliver season after season with minimal intervention from you. Besides, once you’ve bossed these specimens, you’ll be relishing more challenging plants in future years and thats where the gardening magic really happens! Quick Answer […]

I have grown camellias in my gardens for decades and have answered hundreds of camellia problems on this forum and on BBC Garden Rescue. The good news is that most camellia problems are completely fixable once you identify the correct cause. The bad news is that several different problems produce identical-looking symptoms, which is why […]

Lavender dying or looking poorly is genuinely one of the most misdiagnosed plant problems in UK gardening, because the symptoms of almost every possible cause look identical. Brown, drooping, wilting foliage can mean overwatering, root rot, too much shade, wrong soil, overly woody growth, or simply old age. The good news is that once you […]

The critical point with hydrangeas not flowering is that different causes require completely different solutions. The fix for wrong pruning timing is not the same as the fix for frost damage, which is not the same as the fix for too much shade or too much nitrogen. Reaching for a general-purpose fertiliser and hoping for […]

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 […]

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 […]