Author: Chris

Growing Herbs – Getting Started

There’s nothing more rewarding than growing your own herbs and stepping out – into the garden or onto the balcony or even reaching across the sink to the windowsill – to clip a spring of rosemary or thyme or sage to liven up your cooking or even make a refreshing herbal tea.

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Hello Autumn! Gardening in September…

We’re rewarded by the fruits in our orchards and the berries in our fruit gardens, and instead of beating down on our heads, the sun ? if we’re lucky enough to get another Indian Summer ? will gently warm our backs as we work outdoors, plotting and planning for next year’s garden and pruning, clearing and tidying up from this year’s.

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Pleached Trees

Pleaching is a technique we use to create screening and walkways and avenues by weaving tree branches together to create a single structure from its component parts. But in modern garden design, it is so much more…think drama and pleasing structure.

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Roses

We all know that modern roses are easier to grow, kinder on the pocket and less tricky and troubling than their old fashioned counterparts but really, is there any substitute for an old fashioned rose sending its heady perfume into the evening as day slips to dusk.

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Gardening in July

We’re moving along into High Summer, which means if the weather holds, at the weekend and once the holidays start, you’ll likely be spending more time outdoors than indoors.

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Swimming Pool Gardens

A well-designed pool should be a pleasing enhancement to the garden so there’s no need to hide it away. The aesthetic will be more pleasing if it is square to the house and if its proportions reflect the architecture of the home. If the pool is further away from the house then you need to think about access routes to and from the new pool

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Gardening in June – Flower Power

Flower Power is the name of the game this month and if you’ve only just got going or moved house and so are still finding your new garden feet, take a weekend trip to your local garden centre and stock up on those summer favourites that will need to be planted or potted up in a position where they can spend this month luxuriating in the warmth of early summer and any sunshine we are lucky enough to get.

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May. Prune, Tidy and Sow!

With apologies in advance for the fact that this month’s To Do blog sounds suspiciously like an episode of TV’s Casualty or Holby City because as we move this month (May) from Spring to early Summer we need to remember PTS.

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RHS – Gardens to Inspire

It’s May, which means just one thing on the British gardening calendar – the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show (May 24th to 28th). But the RHS has four and soon to be five other inspirational and permanent flagship gardens, all of which are well worth a visit to find ideas that will work in your own garden.

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Front Gardens

Getting to your front door is the single most important function of the space in front of your house. But that doesn’t mean it can’t also lend itself to enhancing not only the aesthetics of your home but the re-sale value too. You need a generous pathway and one not blocked by plants that will soak your trouser legs as you pass along and so the key here is to design a path that looks generous and creates a feeling of space, not meanness.

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