Conserving Plantspeople
I've just spent an enjoyable weekend at the Royal Horticultural Society's National Rhododendron Show at Rosemoor, a lovely garden here in the South West of England. What a great show [...]
Ben Probert
Can Gardening Be Fun Again Please?
Did you know that forsythias kill bees? No? I didn't know either. It could be because this fact is actually completely false. It's another one of those 'internet facts' that's [...]
Do You Have The Daffodil Disorder?
I spent last weekend at a small but excellent local flower show. I was there in various capacities – judge, helper, clean-up crew – for both days. It was nice [...]
A Plantsman’s Confession
I don't think it's right to call yourself a plantsperson. It's one of those those words that has a sort of status to it but no actual firm meaning. Is [...]
The Best Miniature Daffodil
I was going to talk this week about the murky connection between apartheid and the Chelsea Flower Show this week. It's a story that asks questions about due diligence where [...]
The New Horticulture Movement
Hello, my name is Ben and I'm a geriatric millennial. I'm old enough to remember being taken, two pupils at a time, to the school office so that we could [...]
Behaving Badly In Gardens
One Foot In The Grave was a British sit-com that ran from 1990 to 2001. It followed the life of a retiree called Victor Meldrew (played by Richard Wilson), a [...]
Storm Goretti: carnage in the gardens of Cornwall
Thursday the 8th of January was a fairly normal day for the gardeners of Cornwall. It was cold and raining heavily, and while strong winds were forecast this part of [...]
Garden Photography: why gardeners should take pictures
Occasionally I'm asked how I got to be good with plants. There are threes parts to the answer: firstly I started my career in nurseries where the plant range was [...]
Beauty Standards
There's something very precious about white flowers. Depending on the plant, colourful flowers can be showy and full of beauty, yet there's something quietly majestic about the beauty of a [...]
The Indefensible
As the first brightly coloured leaf falls to the ground a new season begins. Not the season of autumn, no, but the season of complaining about leaf blowers. It's an [...]