Open most magazines in January and various articles will be titled “New Year, New You, House, Wardrobe, Job etc.” and I mulled this over for my January gardening column. But the reality of gardening is that January is not really the start of a new year; autumn and spring probably have more of a claim to that. And I feel...
Winter is a time when gardeners can do a lot to support wildlife, including providing a great source of food, especially for birds. Birds remain active all through the winter and in the UK we have many migrant species that arrive here from colder countries in search of food. As a wildlife gardener I am often asked about bird feeders...
If asked to name a conifer tree in December most people might say “Christmas Tree” and many would know that the traditional conifer decorated indoors is a Norway Spruce. But there are very many shapes, colours and sizes of conifer tree that are rather better suited to growing in our gardens than Christmas trees or Leyland Cypress hedges. Removing side shoots...
Even though autumn held out well into November this year with some fabulous leaf colour in the sunny days we saw between the rain, December is indisputably Winter. And whilst that means less colour in the garden, there should still be plenty of interest albeit a bit more green and with more reliance on structure and texture. It is easy to...
I was invited to join the BBC Radio Kent Sunday Gardening programme on December 1st 2019 to talk about Plants for Winter Interest. As a regular listener to the show it was a treat to meet Andy Garland again, the show's host and a keen gardener, and one of the Sunday Gardening resident horticultural experts Steve Bradley. Winter can easily be...
Pruning is one of those ‘hardy perennial’ topics that I am asked about all year round. Many people are aware that winter is a key time but are not exactly sure what you prune in winter or how. In fact the most important thing to understand about pruning is Why? This is because not all pruning is done for the...
