Garden design is inherently divisive: different gardens please various tastes, and serve a range of purposes from practical to political. What to choose? The best way to consider anything serious, according to kings and queens of yore, is to drink on it, and to think on it, on separate days.That’s a useful approach if you’re… Continue reading Chelsea Garden Shows for 2025
Author: Ashridge Nurseries
Urban Fruit Growing: Soft Fruit Edition
Wiltshire-based garden designer Dan Combes wonders why there aren’t more berries, especially in urban areas and their small gardens where a fruit tree might be too big Over the last the weeks, I have planted thousands of bulbs: all inedible. But why (London, I’m talking to you especially) am I not being asked to plant… Continue reading Urban Fruit Growing: Soft Fruit Edition
Forestry Commission Agroforestry Tree Species Guide
Agroforestry is primarily practised by farmers, but elements are increasingly applied to homesteads and large gardens If agroforestry is new to you, one really should start with ART – Agroforestry Research Trust. Agro-forestry means cultivating trees with other agricultural crops and/or livestock, in the same field. The trees are grown in lanes an appropriate distance… Continue reading Forestry Commission Agroforestry Tree Species Guide
National Tree Week 2024
National Tree Week, 23 November – 1 December this year, was launched in 1975 to raise awareness of the huge role that trees play in all of our lives. It coincides with the start of the winter planting season, an ideal time to get people working together in the rain and cold to improve their… Continue reading National Tree Week 2024
Monty Don’s Urgent Hessian Sack Advice
BBC presenter Monty Don makes a helpful suggestion about caring for bareroot plants on delivery, but do you have enough hessian? Monty Don has done more to get girls in the garden than any other handsome, famous face: those cheekbones and that cheeky grin. For that, he is eternally forgiven for everything as far as… Continue reading Monty Don’s Urgent Hessian Sack Advice
HortWeek, the coolest name in the industry, releases the last 2 parts of their peat-free garden podcast extravaganza
Read our musings on parts 1 & 2. Full disclosure: peat bans are in our financial interests, so we have publicly supported them for years. It’s nothing personal against people who want to grow with peat: we liked growing with peat too. We don’t specialise in the plants that most benefit from peat, we already… Continue reading HortWeek, the coolest name in the industry, releases the last 2 parts of their peat-free garden podcast extravaganza
The Hedge Laying Down With A Lamb
Hedge laying is pretty important to anyone with an old country hedge: it’s uncommon to see a garden hedge laid, but most species are suitable Hedge laying is an ancient technology, passed down since at least the Bronze Age. It became super important in Britain with the Enclosures starting in 1603, when big open fields… Continue reading The Hedge Laying Down With A Lamb
North Wales St Asaph Tree Nursery
Denbighshire County Council’s Local Provenance Tree Nursery at St Asaph grows 24 native tree species using stylish Air Pots™, and so can you On the Bionet Wales website, we can read about how St Asaph focuses on using local provenance seeds and cuttings of native trees. With the help of volunteers, they propagate tens of… Continue reading North Wales St Asaph Tree Nursery
Lazy Sunday Fruit Tree & Rootstock Grafting Videos
Grafting is one of Mankind’s ancient technologies, generally done in Spring onto rootstocks planted a full year ago, or mature trees Grafting two plants together happens naturally when compatible species jam up against each other, rubbing their bark off and then getting stuck long enough to fuse together. You see this quite often when inspecting… Continue reading Lazy Sunday Fruit Tree & Rootstock Grafting Videos
What Garden Zone Am I In?
“Where am I, and whose garden is this?” is a common question among cider drinkers and other fun people, and it’s pretty relevant to how your garden works Great Britain has one “temperate oceanic / maritime” climate and isn’t very big, but she is still varied enough that it helps to know where your garden… Continue reading What Garden Zone Am I In?