The Best Garden I visited: Dixter x Two
I have heard it said that you shouldn’t meet your idols and while this doesn’t strictly apply to famous gardens, our visit to Great Dixter hadn’t been at all what I had thought it would be.
The Best Garden I visited this year: results
Whether the sculpture is to your taste isn’t really relevant because each one has been used to remind us that the garden is part of the wider landscape
Shades of Green reviewed by Victoria Summerley
I am a great admirer of John Sales. He is one of the sanest and most perceptive professionals I’ve come across in the garden world. None of that ‘all gardens are lovely’ from him. So I’ve been looking forward to this book since I interviewed...
The best garden I visited this year: a competition.
A small competition everyone – be a star and write me a piece about the best garden you’ve visited this year. Remember – this is thinkingardens. I don’t want any ‘lovelies’ or long winded description and tour of a garden. I want to...
Do you dare? by Anne Wareham
Here is a tale for those new and inexperienced in the garden world. Someone making a garden and hoping for recognition, maybe someone wanting to write about gardens and to move beyond their blog. In other words, someone who is hoping to make a name for themselves in...
How many is enough? Or too many?…by Katherine Crouch
You will all note with horror just how long ago it was that I received this piece. Takes a leap of the imagination, back to March perhaps. Thinking gardeners will have no problem with that. (I’ve been busy) So what do you think? How many repeat plants do you...
How can sense of place help optimise the garden visitor experience? by Janna Schreier
Well, if you wondered how Janna got on with your responses to the questionnaire last year, here you are. It’s not easy. In fact, it’s a challenge worthy of thinking gardeners. I know you’ll be up to it. Janna was – congratulations, Janna, from...
What does ‘wild’ actually mean? by Debbie Wilson
Ah, who’d be fashionable? Or classy? Someone else with a new garden which has prompted reflections. Anne Wareham, editor Away From It All by Debbie Wilson Having only ever had back gardens, I suddenly found myself with six...
The Mad Enterprise of Starting a New Garden by Bridget Hannigan
Just over 30 years ago I started making the garden at Veddw with not much else than a spade and a desperate need to have a garden. There was no internet, we knew no-one, and had very little money. But we had a rather depressing house and two acres of field. The...
Do me a big favour? by Anne Wareham
Do me a big favour – share this with someone who finds gardens totally boring Anne Wareham, editor I recently published a piece here, by Tim Ingram, asking what the purpose of a garden is. Tim basically said a garden is for botanical interest, for...
What is the Purpose of a Garden? by Tim Ingram
We have frequently discussed whether gardens could be art. This piece by Tim Ingram presents a totally different vision of what a garden may be. Are these ideas of gardens contradictory? Mutually exclusive? Or do both miss the point? Anne Wareham, editor ...
Getting youngsters into horticulture: why bother? by Rachel the Gardener
Our regular readers will observe that we have a new advert in the sidebar. I had practically given up on adverts as worthless clutter, apart from our trademark and faithful Everedge. But this is good stuff by another reputable company. If you want to learn how to...
Natural Selection: A Year in the Garden by Dan Pearson reviewed by Tristan Gregory
Someone somewhere may have been wondering why Thinkingardens had disappeared. My apologies – I’ve been on a post garden opening holiday and recovery break. I am especially grateful to Tristan for this review, knowing how fraught his life also is these...
Chelsea 2017 – this ghastly fame phenomenon, by Catharine Howard.
I had intended to join the sponsors and give Chelsea a miss this year, but I can’t turn down a good offer. Catharine was less than delighted by Chelsea 2017….. Anne Wareham, editor Chelsea 2017 – this ghastly fame phenomenon, by Catharine Howard. ...
Recent Posts from: Veddw
Making Veddw Garden: part 2: we arrive.
. I really had no idea what you had in mind, either. I think if I had, I’d have been freaked out. I don’t actually think you ever said “one day all this will be a garden”. I’d have thought you deranged.
Making Veddw Garden – a Love Story: part 1.
And out of what felt to be the ruins of my life, I turned to an ambition to make another garden.
Ambivalence about Snowdrops
Well, I’m sorry, but I didn’t have a happy Christmas. We were both full of cough and were quite unwell. I have not recovered, and I find myself quite unable to write anything new. So I dipped into The Bad Tempered Gardener to offer you a piece on those plants which gardeners obsess about at this time […]
I’ve fallen in love with these.
I love my garden, I do. It’s at the heart of my life. But just recently I’ve been drawn back and back to a windowsill with some sweet dwarf pelargoniums.
Favour the Ferns
Many years ago The Financial Times sent me to do a feature on the RHS ‘Flower Show’ at Tatton Park . I was totally naïve and had no idea what I was supposed to do or to write about. So my excitement was tempered by acute anxiety. The term ‘imposter syndrome’ could have been invented for me. […]
