Winter Gardening

Spring flowers show the first positive signs that spring is just around the corner. There is nothing nicer than getting through the winter and seeing a mix of spring bulbs emerging in the garden. Winter Aconites (Eranthis) and Snowdrops (Galanthus) are the first early bird bulbs to spring up. It brightens up our gardening days […]

Pear trees are one of the least fussy small garden fruit trees. By their very nature, they tend to grow more vertically than horizontally. Lending themselves to both formative pruning or small gardens where space is at a premium. With the correct care your pear tree will reward you with delicious organic autumn fruit in […]

You may be thinking why on earth would anyone want to be out planting roses in the middle of Winter? I’d usually agree but did you know that by planting bare root roses in winter you can save yourself a whole heap of expense and hassle next year? Saving you time and money to enjoy […]

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, 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 ends […]

The run-up to Christmas in December is usually a really busy month for me. Whilst most people are winding down my calender goes into overdrive with a mix of garden design work and social activities. Those savvy early bird garden design clients are queued up for me to start designing before the spring, my family […]

When it comes to taking care of your lawn during winter, much of the maintenance requires preparation. Again, this isn’t an extensive amount of work, but there are a few points to take note of.  Now that the cold is seeping in, there’s no better time to hunker down with your to-do list and start […]

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 fruit tree grafting course was run at Ordsall Hall in Salford, a Tudor hall and knot garden here in Manchester. Peter Nicols from the Northern Fruit Group led the grafting workshop in showing us how to successfully graft some apple trees. The session was aimed at getting us from grafting zero to heroes! We […]