My favourite garden and awarded the Best Show Garden, the Eco Oasis Garden

April 29, 2025

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

As we wandered amongst the gardens I had an early clear favourite, and it was this garden designed by Dan Hartley. The corten steel drew me in, and the lush planting kept my eyes busy while looking at the planting at multiple heights and the small details like the insect hotel (bottom left in the first photo below), and the tin watering can (to the left of the seats in the second photo) and the bottle of rose temptingly placed on the table in the seating area!

But it was more than that, it was the feeling of calm as I admired the garden and it’s hard to explain. It wasn’t as intense a feeling as when we first descended into Hunte’s gardens in Barbados but it was along the same lines - and for any garden to give you ‘all the feels’ well, it has to be good doesn’t it?

This garden was inspired by the Gardener’s World Live theme of ‘The Good Life’ and aims to combine eco-friendly elements, aesthetic appeal and mindful living. The show notes say that ‘organic abundance is represented by vibrant, lush planting’ and that the garden invites people to experience the beauty of a balanced and environmentally conscious outdoor space. The garden is designed to be maintained with organic gardening principles and integrates simple water conservation and aims to enhance the natural ecosystem, which all in turn allows people to create their own ‘good life’.

And so I was pleased to see my favourite garden at the show awarded the Best Show Garden - of course, I had no say in it whatsoever, but it clearly appealed to many more people than just me.

Now wouldn’t it be nice to crack open that bottle of rose? Well, once it’s been on ice anyway!

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was just as good as I expected! I’ll be sharing more from my visit to the show - I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

The Kitchen Garden at THE PIG

April 13, 2025

I’m a sucker for a kitchen garden, as you may have realised from previous posts such as The Chef’s Table by Adam Frost, Challenging what kitchen gardens can be and the garden at River Cottage HQ to name a few, but there are many more posts here on my blog - just search for ‘kitchen garden’! And while I’d already seen and enjoyed Adam Frost’s garden at the show, I was in for another treat with this kitchen garden, complete with its very own large pig.

The garden was designed by Ollie Hutson and Fran Chilet-Olmos for The Pig Hotel, who admit that at THE PIGs they have an obsessive commitment to homegrown, local produce - which obviously isn’t a bad thing. I hadn’t realised until this garden that what they can’t grow or rear themselves, they source from local farmers and suppliers and it forms the basis of their 25 mile menu, and that is something to celebrate - and I bet it tastes as good as it looks.

One thing I’ve realised as I think more about how to add our own stamp on our garden here, is I’m a big fan of dense planting, and mixing edibles and flowers together - actually that’s two things, but it’s good to know that about myself. I think what’s holding me back in my own garden plans is how those tie in with a relatively low maintenance garden, or if I’m setting myself up for a challenge, or worse a fail - some more research and thinking is definitely required.

While I love the ordered structure of growing vegetables in straight lines like those I’ve (not literally) drooled over at Heligan and in the potager at Cheverny, I know that’s not really my growing style - I don’t have the patience, or the skill to replicate what I’ve seen there. This jumbled together approach is much more my style, but I’m not fooled into thinking it’s necessarily easier! But the results are fantastic, aren’t they?

Though I think I could probably manage to grow some basil in blocks like this - and I love the use of a crate for this too.

The chairs in the seating area caught my eye, I think partly because of their lived in look but also because they reminded me of my many years ago eBay purchase, which are still going. I was going to add strong to that sentence, but that might be a stretch of the phrase - they’re still in use though, in fact only this weekend they were put to good use as part of a ‘crochet blanketed fort’ by the youngest members of the family visiting for a barbecue. It’s amazing isn’t it, that three chairs and two crocheted picnic blankets can provide such fun - let alone when you throw in a tube of ‘bubbles’ to blow!

I told you the pig was adorable didn’t I, and I’m sure is more than happy with their surroundings!

So plenty of food for thought for my future garden in just a few photos, which have also evoked so many memories of other kitchen gardens, all of which will I’m sure help inform that part of my new garden - eventually!

A reminder to 'Stop and Smell the Flowers'

March 27, 2025

Sometimes we all need that reminder don’t we? Whether it’s an actual reminder, or one like that’s prompted by the recent upturn in weather. Stopping and enjoying, let alone smelling the flowers is good for us. Though don’t stop too long at the moment in my garden, or else you’ll see more weeds than I’d like, but of course they have flowers too and are often at this time of year one of the few flowers out so they’re good for our pollinators. Phew, I can leave the weeding for just a little longer then!

But there’s a serious message in this garden which was designed by Julie Haylock. Our world is driven by faceless, fast-paced interaction with technology (and the irony that you’re reading this on my blog isn’t lost on me) but by finding a peaceful sanctuary sitting amongst nature is important for our wellbeing.

In this garden a winding gravel path encourages you to slow down and take in the soft colour palette and fragrance of the flowers, engaging your senses. As you step through the moon gate you’re encouraged to leave behind your busy life to sit for a while and reflect, screened from the world, to focus on the important things: healthy, family and friendship.

What I liked about this garden was the repeating circles, remember in my previous garden we added circles to our lawn, so I think it loosely reminded me of that, and while I like circles in gardens our garden here is the wrong shape for that. Previously our garden was long and thin, so adding circles to the lawn made it appear wider; here our garden is wider than it is long, so circles, or even a large oval would make it appear even more squat and bring the back wall in. Which is a shame, as I know how to do circles!!

The pond was small and so you can see how introducing a pond as part of the Make a Metre Matter campaign would be completely doable, and I like how it’s above ground level in a corten steel bowl. I also like how its softened with the frothy erigirons, a plant that didn’t transport too well from my London garden so is definitely on my purchase list.

It took me a little while to notice though that the ‘Reflect’ banner was hung the wrong way round for most visitors viewing the garden - maybe intentional, maybe not - but either way it doesn’t detract from the space does it.

This planting is brought to life by the wooden sets providing a path around the water feature - but also the peonies, lavender and many other plants in the pink, blue and purple palette really are calming. I didn’t think a water feature was for me, but maybe I’m having second thoughts - argh! so much choice, that’s really quite the thing when you have a blank landscape. I’m not sure how these designers do it, and for the showcase gardens, how they bring it together in such a short space of time.

But I’m also very glad that they do!