If we’re to truly break free from peat-dependent gardening, what’s needed is joined-up oversight with the vision to see the bigger picture. Unlikely as it sounds, there is every chance that gardening will soon turn noticeably greener, as our gardens, allotments and greenhouses – after three decades of delay, doublespeak and deception – are finally […]
It’s time to look beyond plastic – there’s a new pot on the plot that promises pollution-free planting. If gardening wants to get serious – and I mean serious, not just some fluffy padding that fills a few column inches now and then in glossy magazines – about its darker side, the one that blights […]
Why pay the financial and environmental costs of a propagator, when our own well-heated homes offer plenty of ideal places to germinate seeds and nurture seedlings? “Sow your seeds and germinate them in a heated propagator at… blah, blah, blah.” If I had a penny for every time I’ve read or heard this outmoded gardening […]
We can’t buy our way out of the plastic problem – but we can reuse, recycle and share our way toward a more sustainable gardening world. Is gardening’s contribution to our global plastic pollution crisis sorted? Have we – gardeners and the businesses that profit handsomely from us – collectively fixed it? Is concern over […]
Our climate is getting inexorably wetter, but as gardeners we need to learn to think more like our plants. It’s time to start dancing in the rain. When my gardening dreams and I landed here 18 years ago, on what was a bracken-riddled bank, I had no inkling that I was about to embark on […]
… green gardening Christmas – and a more climate crisis-aware gardening world in 2021. Change arrives at a snail’s pace in the wonderful world of gardening – even when our fragile natural world is undergoing its own profound and irreversible change. But if ever an entwined community of folk needed to change, it’s this one […]
Climate chaos has some hard lessons for earth-friendly gardeners, not least about embracing change – and rejoicing in the upsides where we can. Having invested much time and energy over the past 30 or so years in thinking and writing about how gardening can make the world a better, safer, saner, fairer and more beautiful […]
Cardboard is one waste problem that’s actually a solution, with a host of labour-saving, cost-cutting, earth-friendly uses in your garden and greenhouse. Brown, bulky, boring and super-abundant: if there’s one thing we’ve not been short of during these tough and trying pandemic months, it’s cardboard. Booming local deliveries, click-and-collect services, and online buying generally have […]
Sun’s up: as summer fades, these solar-powered stalwarts reach their zenith. Sunflowers are my September saviours. As autumn starts to win the tug of love with summer, I’m drawn to these tall, slightly improbable-looking, reach-for-the-sky flowers every bit as much as the clouds of bees, drone flies, hoverflies and pristine red admiral imagos. These tough, […]
A dystopian future of gardening at the mercy of climate chaos no longer needs to be imagined; it’s already happening, here and now. I’m spooked. Just over a month ago, I was imagining what gardening in the not-too-distant future might look like. My mind’s eye conjured devastating early summer frosts, 40°C summer heatwaves, and violent, plant-shredding […]
Keeping seed-gathering and sowing close to home reduces gardening miles to footsteps – and results only in joy. This spring, one coy flower, above all others, brought me an untrammelled and deeply satisfying joy that endured for weeks on end. It wasn’t just the early dash of pink and blue it added to my borders […]
As the climate crisis escalates, 40°C heat alerts are becoming a regular event – and that’s before you’ve factored in the midsummer frosts and greenhouse-shattering storms. Dry, rustling leaves roused Lena from her heat-induced snooze; the thick, clammy air was finally on the move. Yawning, she pressed her back against the oak’s trunk, her legs […]
