My top 10 posts of 2025

Each year I like to take a look at which posts from the previous year have been the most popular and while I’m at it I also take a look at the posts that have been around for a while and still get looked at, and I like to share that each year. Yes, it’s nerdy, but I love it. I’m not sure why but there’s often surprises along the way, in both lists - so let’s get on with it, shall we.

Starting with my most popular posts from 2025, I loved the Unearthed exhibition so it was great to see that post topping the list:

1 Previewing Unearthed: The Power of Gardening at the British Library (Ad)

An exhibition about gardening, and at the British Library - which despite living in London for a very long time I’d never been to! It was great to be invited along to the preview and help share the word about this fabulous exhibition, which a cut down version of later toured the country. I’d love to know your views on it if you managed to get along to it.

2 Traditional Quilts by Hopkin Rees at the Newark Quilt Show

It’s great to see one of my posts from the Newark Quilt Show on this list, and the quilts by Hopkin Rees are amazing. It’s my local quilt show - just ten minutes or so down the road from home, and a bright spot in any January!

3 The Chef's Table by Adam Frost (Ad)

If I’m honest, this would be my perfect garden - and you can see why my love for succulents everywhere has come from! Actually, when I can I move into this garden? I know I can’t, but if I could, I would!

4 Gardeners' World Live 2025: Win a pair of tickets for Sunday 15 June (Ad)

Thankfully I’m not the only one that’s a fan of Gardeners’ World Live, and once again my competition post makes this list, so that’s good to know. I’m proud to partner with the Gardeners’ World Live team on this, and hope this partnership will continue.

5 The Biba Story: The outfits

This post is quite a different genre to my other posts, but I’m glad it’s here - and I was pleased to get along to see The Biba Story for myself, again in a museum I’d never been to while I actually lived in London. I guess somehow museums weren’t always on my radar in my busy working life!

6 Inside the fabric and haberdashery departments at Liberty

It seems I’m not the only one to enjoy a look around these departments in Liberty, and it’s easy to see why. I did leave with a couple of pieces of material, which I haven’t used yet, so I was quite restrained as I could have left with so much more quite easily!

7 Make a Metre Matter with Gardeners' World (Ad)

Another Gardeners’ World post on this year’s list, this one is a pre-show post that encourages us all to Make a Metre Matter - and that’s all it takes to make a meaningful difference.

8 Gardeners' World Live: What a show! (Ad)

We’re not done with the love for Gardeners’ World Live just yet - you loved this post almost as much as I loved the show. Choosing one photo to represent the show was tricky, but I’ve gone for Nick Bailey’s Make a Metre Matter garden and his rows of cabbages - I still want to grow any kind of vegetables in straight lines, maybe one day!!

9 Revisiting the Orangery at Belton

This is one of my favourite places, and one I’ve realised as I’m writing this post that I don’t get to visit as much as I could, or should. Belton is our nearest National Trust garden, so there’s really no reason not to get myself along there more often, is there?

10 Floral Art at the Devon County Show

There’s some truly amazing floral displays in this post, and who wouldn’t want to wear a hat such as this?

So that’s quite a list, and it’s great to see some of my favourite posts and places appear again.

So onto the second list

This list is posts created at any time by viewed in 2025, the year in brackets is the year it was originally posted - and this list is often very similar to the previous year, although often the order changes somewhat - and it has this year too, though not number one slot!

1. Filling our gabion baskets (2017)

2. A walk from Kinoulton to Hickling and back again (2024)

3. Previewing Unearthed: The Power of Gardening at the British Library (Ad) (2025)

4. My IKEA hack: HOL storage table to laundry basket (2015)

5. Our first visit to the Newark Garden Show (2024) new

6. Storing logs in our gabion baskets (2017)

7. Bagels, cream cheese & jam (2023)

8. In the Orangery at Belton House (2022)

9. Planting a strawberry border (2016)

10. Sean Murray's Great Chelsea Garden Challenge (2017)

There’s two new entries this year, but only one of those posts - Previewing Unearthed (at number 3) is from this year. The other new entry is at number 5, a post from last year which shares more from our first visit to the Newark Garden Show, which is another great local show.

Thanks for being here again over the past year, and bearing with me with this post which you know appeals to my inner nerd. I already can’t wait to see what this year brings!

I’ve added the *AD tag to some of the post links above as they contains links to posts which were declared as ads when they were published on my blog.

A garden for all weathers

* 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.

Given the weather we’ve had recently, which seems to have been everything from summer to winter in a matter of days, sharing this garden seems appropriate!

Lyn’s Garden: a garden for all weathers was designed and built by August Ponds Ltd and won a Silver Award at the show, and it looks at how we can continue to have a garden that can be enjoyed with year-round interest in light of changes to our climate, while also being mindful of the environment.

There’s much I like in this garden, but there’s also a couple of things that I’m unsure about.

To me that very much looks like a front door on the house at the back, and it’s great to have a good looking front garden, as well as a back garden but I can’t get my head around having a table and chairs in a front garden. And yes, I know this isn’t a real garden and is demonstrating what we could have.

The main feature of the garden is a pondless waterfall that is fed by rainwater collected from the house roof, which I could get on board with as given the amount of rain we have at times it would be good for us to manage the rainwater in our gardens. The waterfall means the water is aerated and therefore allows the water in the main harvesting unit to remain fresh for use for irrigation.

I loved the planting which was chosen for their hardiness and ability to withstand winter rains and summer drought conditions, and I love how densely it’s planted. That’s definitely something I could use and learn from, but I’m unsure about the plants dotted in between the pavers.

I just don’t think they work on a practical level. I know that I’d be tripping over the plants, or kicking them, as I wandered up the path with my shopping etc - though of course that would be comedy gold for anyone watching!

Don’t get me wrong, as a show garden it looks great - and that table is definitely swoon worthy, but as a front garden this one doesn’t work for me. Which is fine, especially as I don’t actually have a front garden!

But the planting, that’s definitely something I can get onboard with.

* 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.

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

* 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.

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.

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?

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.

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.