Thinking of the moon and stars, and bats...

October 23, 2025

* I was invited to this year’s Gardeners’ World Live and provided with a pair of tickets to the show, therefore all my posts will be marked as 'Ad’ though as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

This garden, designed by Wouter Leyssen, was accompanied by and information stand hosted by one of the garden’s sponsors, the Bats Conservation Trust which is what initially caught our attention, but more on bats later.

To give this Beautiful Border it’s full title - The Milky Way - Thinking of the moon and stars, connects the night and day garden. Dark leaved plants allow the visitor to experience the alien world of the night garden during the daytime. When the usual green colours disappear, things start to look unfamiliar and look like a different world, and as you can see from the photos below it’s quite effective in replicating those night time shades.

Dark leafed plants either side of the gravel path which repesents the Milky Way

They’re hard to see in these photos, but the borders were scattered with white flowers (look bottom right in the photo below), and these represent the stars.

A wider view of the garden and the russet/black leaved hedging. A black chair at the end of the path complete with a telescope

The white-green spherical evergreen shrub in front of the gate represents the moon, and the gravel path the Milky Way - which just goes to show with imagination almost anything can be replicated into a garden design, doesn’t it?

Looking at the chair and telescope from a different angle, with a galvanised watering can in the raised bed in the foreground

And the bats?

Well we were intrigued as we have a couple of bats which fly around our garden at twilight, and were keen to find out more about these peculiar little creatures. It was great to chat to the people on the information stand, and learn a little more about the fascinating species that so many of us are often quite oblivious about.

Did you know…

All British bats and their roosts are protected by law
A brown long-eared bat can hear a ladybird walking on a leaf
Bats are indicative of a healthy, diverse environment
A single pipistrelle can eat 3,000 tiny insects in just one night
Bats are the only mammal that can fly
Bats are gentle, clean and sociable animals
All of the 17 breeding species in the UK feed on insects
Bats can see but use their ears to hunt in the dark using echolocation
With wings folded a tiny pipistrelle could fit into a matchbox
Bats only have one baby each year, called a pup
Bats don’t make nests or chew wires when roosting in buildings

I didn’t know much about bats, but I did know some of the above. I didn’t realise that they fly all night either, which makes them truly fascinating. We recently joined a ‘bat walk’ organised by our local council at one of their parks, which was just as fascinating.

A fuzzy picture of the echolocator provided for our council organised bat walk

It was great to see so many people of all ages equipped with the provided echolocators (shown in the fuzzy picture above) keen to learn more, wandering around the park at dusk looking out and hoping to spot at least one or two of bats as they emerged for the evening.

From this walk we learnt that the bats in our gardens are most likely the tiny common pippistrelle, whose characteristics are the fast and jerky movements, but even so I’m pretty sure we’ll still be calling them Boris!

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was quite a show! I’ll be sharing more from my visit to this year’s show throughout the year - I hope you enjoy them as much as I did the show.

Where there's water, there's life

September 18, 2025

This garden, designed by Rachel Bailey, celebrates 30 years of the Association of Professional Landscapers (APL) which pretty much does what it says on the tin, and also sponsors the APL Avenue at the Gardeners’ World Shows. The garden highlights the vital connection between water, plants, people and nature and includes innovative design techniques that slow down the water’s flow ensuring it is conserved and used effectively in garden landscapes.

Looking across the boardwalk and planting to the blue gazebo and seating area

The blue gazebo structure is clearly one of the most eye catching elements of the design, and I guess the blue reflects the garden’s water theme. Then there’s the boardwalk, also used near water and/or in damp areas which again reinforces that water connection.

The boardwalk extends out through the planting to an upright wooden sculpture

The wooden posts are repeated through the garden and also act as bug hotels with holes drilled into the wood

I’m a big fan of the planting, both close up and from a distance it’s really effective - and when you’re close up you can see the pools of water emerging from the boardwalk and can easily imagine how those gravelled areas could hold more water as and when required.

The other thing I’m a fan of in this garden are the chairs with their striking design, which both stands out and fades into the background. They look pretty comfortable too.

Informal and full planting with yellow and blue/purple flowers

The corner of the boardwalk provides the perfect spot to display the two crystal goblet awards

This was a great garden, and while I don’t think it’s something I’d replicate in my own garden it is one that I can admire. I wasn’t the only one to think so as this was awarded a Platinum award and also Best in Show - the photo above proudly shows off their crystal goblets for those awards.

Subtle, understated but quietly proud - I think that sums up the whole garden to be honest.

Nick Bailey's Plant-Based Garden

August 28, 2025

I said in my highlights post from the show that I was looking forward to seeing how Nick Bailey would incorporate the #MakeAMetre matter initiative into his garden, and how successful it was and today I’m sharing some of the many pictures I took of the garden.

Dense prairie style planting in the foreground with the seating area in the background

Three instances of the dark roof shaped structure repeating through the garden among the raised beds

The garden features a cluster of Douglas fir buildings and structures in the style of a traditional homestead, and it was the repeating shapes of the frames that made the garden such a success for me. They brought height to the space and their bold charred wood certainly brought impact.

The narrow bricked path forming a 'central corridor' through the garden's planting, ponds and seating areas

The buildings included a Burnt-Out Barn with grape vines overhead and dining below, the Brassicarium for protection for edibles, and the Roofed Barn seating area (below) which overlooked the ponds and a meadow-matrix perennial grass planting. And if you look closely there’s patchwork throws over the chairs too.

The open but covered seating area with cosy chairs, patchwork throws and a game of chess

Lush green planting growing alongside one of the buildings softening its shape

Long term readers will know that I like a structured and ordered veg plot, but never have I heard of a Brassicarium, and I wish I had - isn’t it a great word?

The brassicarium complete with kale and cabbages

The vegetable raised beds but with some plants - such as a bronze fennel - growing in the path

I liked that the planting was at different levels, and even the raised beds varied in height which I think helped this garden feel more like an established garden. The other thing that was a nice touch was the plants that had ‘crept’ over their borders softening the paths.

Even the sage that seemingly had ‘escaped’ the show garden’s boundaries.

An escaped purple sage growing under the show garden's rope border

I was also a fan of the compost bins, though I’m not sure I’d have placed them this close to the dining area in a real life garden, but the open and stackable concept was good. So much so that I became a little obsessed with how they were built.

Two open compost bins made from squares of wood, with the dining area behind

Down at ground level looking at the construction of the compost bins

Looking closely and by poking a finger in the gap it seems they were simply stacked on top of each other. And that dark wood was newly charred as my grubby finger attested to!

They definitely gave me food for thought for my own garden, though they may be over engineered for what I need, but they do show that compost bins don’t need to be the ugly plastic daleks!

The view across the vegetable raised beds - from the compost bins

I loved this garden, and it wasn’t just the structures for me. The concept of one square metre, the dense planting, mixing edibles with flowers, the informality of it all made it a great space, and I hope it has a longer term home - it deserves it.

What do you think?