The Real Garden Blog

• 20 Jun '11

  Gardens - Homo Suburian's link to nature

  
  Some enlightened companies have started providing outdoor spaces for their employees to take breaks in, but this may be the only sight of plants, perhaps moving water or grass and some open sky in the whole day for many people, then perhaps the week, and as the weeks stack up its easy to get used to zero contact with the natural world for perhaps a year.
• 10 Jun '11

  Gardening roots and culture.

  
  The cultivation of plants is a worldwide occupation. The basic need to feed ourselves is the root of our connection with plants, and in most cultures the significance of a bountiful harvest has lead to a symbolic veneration of plants, an appreciation of their beauty that is intrinsically bound up with a deeper significance in health and wellbeing.
• 1 Jun '11

  Gardening and recent UK winters.

  
  Anybody who has a garden, or designs them or builds them has struggled with the weather conditions for a solid 7 months and counting. It’s like a battlefield! One minute we are mopping up the wounded, next mourning the losses and now rushing to the aid of the (yet again) stricken with hosepipes and buckets.
• 25 May '11

  Define 'Exotic' Gardening

  
  
  My work has often been tagged as exotic gardening. Sometimes I loathe being pigeon holed in that category but when I try to think of another description for my designs I struggle to find a one word tag that can them sum up as well as ‘exotic’. Part of the problem is that most people immediately think of big leafy bananas and palms, tender plants and jungle settings as soon as the dreaded ‘e’ word is mentioned, but there is so much more to this style of designing and gardening than that.
• 20 May '11

  Choosing plants for garden designs

  
  There seems to be definite approaches to this part of garden design that I’ve noticed over the years from talking to various nurserymen and women, showing clients of my own around nurseries and fly on the wall situations listening to customers walking around nurseries when they think I’m another punter. They go something like this:
  1. Oooooh I’ll have one of them - I like the colour of them flowers.............