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15/10/2026

Wait until November, once the temperature has dropped enough to reduce the fungal burden, and the bulb goes into ground that is working in its favour rather than against it.

The other thing worth knowing is which tulips are worth buying again. The species varieties will come back quite happily year after year.

The really beautiful ones, the doubles and the parrots, have one good year in them, and then they fade away like an annual.

So those you buy fresh every autumn, late summer or early September, and then you sit on them for a few weeks. At the price tulips are, those weeks are worth it.

I will say we are getting warmer, wetter winters, so that window may well be moving.

This is part two of The Imperfect Gardener. Most gardening advice tells you what to do. This series tells you why. Follow along if that sounds like your sort of thing.

Have yours gone in already, or are you waiting?

14/10/2026

I won first prize for my dahlias this year. Only a small village show, but I was pleased.

And I still don’t know whether to lift them or leave them in.

Last year I lifted mine and lost the lot. They sat wet all winter and that was that. This year they came through the drought and they are still going, nice and late in the season.

So rather than pretend there is one right answer, I am doing both. Half are coming up and half are staying in, and next spring will tell me which my garden prefers.

If yours are staying in, wait until the frost has blackened them before you cut them down. By then the starch has gone back underground, and that is what carries them through to next year.

Every garden is different. That is rather the point.

So, something new. This is part one of The Imperfect Gardener.

It is a series about how I actually garden, rather than how a garden looks once it is finished. I will show you what I am looking at before I decide anything.

What the plant or the soil or the season is telling me, what is really going on underneath it, and then the smallest thing I can do about it. Sometimes that turns out to be nothing at all.

06/10/2026

Most of what fails in a north-facing border isn’t a bad plant. It’s a sun plant.

North-facing border swaps a designer would make.

Instead of Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’, Bergenia ‘Bressingham Ruby’. Sedum really does prefer full sun, because it’s a stonecrop and it’s adapted for sunny positions. It will cope in semi-shade, but Bergenia is a hundred per cent suitable for a shady spot, with those lovely strapping leaves. Elephant’s ears, as it’s commonly known.

Instead of Stipa tenuissima, Hakonechloa. Stipa is really a grass for full sun, but it ends up in shadier places because people think grasses can go anywhere. Hakonechloa is Japanese forest grass. It’s slightly thicker in the leaf, it copes with those lower light levels, and it doesn’t actually perform in full sun.

Instead of Cercis siliquastrum, an Amelanchier. The Cercis is a full sun tree. Amelanchier will do well in shade, and so will a birch if you’d rather.

Instead of Buxus, Fatsia japonica. Large leaves, structural, evergreen. I won’t plant Buxus anywhere any more, even though it’s been a very good evergreen in the past, and that’s because of box caterpillar and box blight.

And instead of wisteria, the climbing hydrangea, Schizophragma hydrangeoides. Wisteria really won’t flower in an east or north-facing position, only a west or south-facing one. The climbing hydrangea is resplendent in the shade.

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05/10/2026

Most bulbs give you one good year. These come back.

Bulb swaps a designer would make. And this is about what you put in the ground, not what you put in a pot.

Instead of double or parrot tulips, species tulips. The species flower year on year and hold true to their flower type. The more cultivated, hybridised ones perform for one year true to type, and then fade.

Instead of ‘Tête-à-tête’, Narcissus ‘Thalia’. Scented, and it flowers year on year with lovely floating white blooms.

Instead of Crocus ‘Joan of Arc’, the species and mixed crocuses. Joan of Arc is one of the largest crocus, so it shows up in a container. The smaller ones look resplendent scattered and naturalised in a lawn.

Instead of gladioli, Nerine against a south-facing wall. Nerine multiply, they love the heat, and they give you a bank of pink colour in late summer if you let them naturalise. Gladioli are top heavy, so they need staking or propping against other plants, though they do look fabulous in their first year.

And instead of Hyacinthus orientalis, a grape hyacinth under a little apple or pear tree. They do colonise quickly, so put them somewhere they can.

The ones I’d still use, just in pots: parrot tulips, ‘Tête-à-tête’ around a doorstep, Joan of Arc, gladioli, and a hyacinth on the windowsill, which is beautiful and scented and fills a seasonal gap over the winter.

29/09/2026

Half your w**ds aren’t w**ds.

Working It Out With Nature, part two.

People will tell you to stay on top of your w**ding, and they’re not wrong to. Weeds are the ones that cope with conditions the tender things can’t, so leave them to it and you’ll have a proper problem by spring. I can see that coming in my own herb border already.

But here’s the difficulty. The first leaves a seedling puts up aren’t really leaves at all. They’re cotyledons, the seed’s own food store, and they look much the same across hundreds of different plants.

At that stage a cornflower and a thistle are near enough identical. Which is how you end up pulling out the wrong thing.

So wait for the true leaves. Those are the ones that come next, and they’ll look like a small version of the grown plant. That’s when you can actually tell what you’ve got.

There’s a quicker check too. One leaf up and you’re in the Poaceae, so it’s a grass. Two leaves and it’s almost everything else. Trees, perennials, the lot.

I’d give them a fortnight, then go through and decide. Keep it, move it, or pull it. And while you’re waiting, sow deliberately. Drills, a line of sand, or broadcast onto a cleared bed you know you’ll leave undisturbed. Then you’re not guessing later.

This year I’ve got Myosotis coming through, cornflower, borage, Nigella, and Papaver somniferum, which I do love drifting through a border.

Most gardening advice tells you what to do. This series tells you why. So follow along.

28/09/2026

Most people choose paving from a photograph. I choose it from how it ages.

Paving swaps a designer would make.

Instead of grey limestone, grey granite. Limestone shows up every bit of mark from the laying process, and it has really open pores so it stains easily just with laying. It’s a nightmare. Granite has a very dense structure, it jet washes clean, and it doesn’t need sealing.

Instead of concrete slabs, Raj riven sandstone. The darker colours are really good and adaptable, the riven finish is nice and rustic, and it’s a natural stone. It does need sealing at laying and annually after, but it has a far better finish than concrete.

Instead of porcelain, honed sandstone. And this isn’t to say I won’t install porcelain, I like it. But it’s often expensive, it needs a lot of laying technique, and you can’t cut it in curves, which I often like to do. It’s nearly twice the price just because of the laying. Honed sandstone teams up beautifully with different cobbles and looks lovely in a UK garden.

Instead of block pavers, brick paviers. Narrow, attractive, and they team up nicely with either the riven or the honed sandstone. They’ve got a bit of designer flair to them.

And instead of gravel, bonded aggregate. It’s a marmite material and you have to be sure you like it, and it will track, but it doesn’t migrate the way gravel does. It fills the space cheaply and it’s a really good alternative just beyond the back of the house.

22/09/2026

Don’t rebuild the slope. Use it.

If I Had Your Garden, part eleven. A sloping garden, and an extension that’s taken up half of it.

The trouble with an extension moving into a sloping garden is that you’ve created an issue to deal with later. With the cost of living now, we generally improve our homes rather than move. But those panoramic windows going into your beautiful new extension mean the view onto the garden needs to sing all year round.

First, level where you need it and slope where you don’t. On a slope you have to retain soil to create flat areas. This garden has two datum points, the fixed levels you have to meet: the top studio, which needs a patio, and the back doors at threshold level. So two level patios, and in between them a sloping area of grass. That’s the technique that reduces the construction.

Second, planters. Retaining structures, but with real soil volume inside them. That moves all that cubic meterage out of the terraced area and into somewhere planted with abundant perennials, and it brings the garden to you.

Third, the steps. Most steps end up being a runway through the garden. I’d rather they were aesthetic decisions that gave you blocks of interest, so you get separate spaces to move through and along to rather than one straight route.

What I wouldn’t do is leave the original structure sitting in isolation. I’d bring in reclaimed sleepers to repeat the theme through the whole space, with abundant planting over the edges. Trailing rosemary, Lysimachia, anything that softens those hard construction lines.

So an aggressive slope becomes a beautiful, structured garden that invites you in, and is a joy to look at through those windows.

If you’re stuck on something in your own garden, drop me a message and I’ll tell you what I’d do.

16/09/2026

A patio isn’t a garden.

If I Had Your Garden, part ten. A pre-existing patio with nothing around it.

Clients often come to me with a patio already in, or a structure that doesn’t hold together into a complete garden. In this one the pergola was meant to frame a wonderful view, and instead those structures acted like barriers across it.

And it isn’t a criticism. The work had been done very well, and I’d never rip out something someone has already paid for, even if I’d have designed it differently myself.

So first, frame the view. Just not with a bar-like structure. Pleached trees within the garden with a border underneath, and a wisteria walkway that frames the view and leads you through, rather than blocking your way into the wider space.

Second, that wisteria walk does more than frame it. It draws you in, it gives you shade, and there’s a destination at the end. A secluded seat for two, where you can sit and reflect on the view. A destination, not just a transition through the space.

Third, bring the planting right into and around the patio and fill it with bold structure. Trees, a screening hedge, great swathes of grasses and perennials. The patio stays exactly where it is and nothing gets ripped out. It just stops sitting in the middle of nothing.

What I wouldn’t do is paint that pergola black, the way it was before. If you’ve paid for a heavy oak structure you want it to sing its own song, not disappear.

So a patio isn’t the end of the story. You can plan around it, draw the plants in, and make a garden that feels complete.

If you’re stuck on something in your own garden, drop me a message and I’ll tell you what I’d do.

08/09/2026

Some say cut it down in autumn. Others say leave it till spring.

Working It Out With Nature, part one. And the honest answer is either, depending on the state of your border and whether your plants are established.

The received wisdom now is spring, and there are good reasons for it. You leave the berries for the birds, you leave habitat for the bugs, and the nutrients go back down into the plant.

But if you cut back in autumn, what does that do? You’re taking away greener, fleshier material that we need to compost, to return those nutrients to the soil later. Against that, you reduce the pests and diseases in the border, because they’ve nowhere to overwinter either.

And it looks tidier through the winter.

So you either have lovely standing interest, or you have a neat manicured space. Me personally, I’d go for the winter interest and leave it till spring.

Except this year. In my imperfect garden the heatwaves really got me, as I’m sure they got a lot of you. The perennial w**ds took hold and my herb garden was completely swamped. I’ve got a w**d bank in that soil from when I took it over two years ago, and I’m still battling my way through it.

So I’ve cut my perennials back already. Now I’ll w**d through, get rid of the bindw**d, and mulch, to improve the bulk of the soil so it’s more resilient to the next one.

And the key thing is this. You are a domestic homeowner with a garden, not a horticultural estate with hordes of people supporting your planting. So if the borders have got untidy and a few w**ds got in, be kind to yourself. Cut back, get some order in place now, and tackle the perennial w**ds while it’s still easy. Next year you’ll have bulked those borders up and you can go back to a spring cutback.

This series is about understanding the principles of horticulture. If you want to know why you’re doing things rather than just what to do, follow along.

04/09/2026

The triangle isn’t the problem. The fence line is.

If I Had Your Garden, part nine. A triangular garden, as wide as a house at one end and running out to nothing at the other.

This is what I’d call a cheese wedge shape. The thing that defeats people is those boundary lines. They all run off different angles, so you can’t set your patio or your borders off them comfortably. Nothing communicates with anything else.

First, ignore those boundary lines completely. Work off the back of the house instead, because that’s nearly always the widest part of the garden. Three parallel lines running down the garden, with cross sections dividing it up. That gives you corridors of grass, patio and borders, and it builds real depth into a triangle instead of letting it taper away. And that holds true for any awkward shape, not just a triangle.

Second, use perspective rather than trying to fight it. A triangle already pulls you to a point. So I’d stage the sizes. Smaller trees towards the house, larger trees towards the far point. That reverses the perspective and stops the garden running away from you.

Third, make that tip a destination. Otherwise you stand there wondering what on earth to do with it, and the space stays useless. So make a picture of it. A pretty shed, a white table and chairs in a shaded corner, or a pergola set parallel to the house but right at the back, so you’re creating the illusion of the space being wider than it actually is.

What I wouldn’t do is make a feature of those fence lines. We want to turn them into a void. So either use Cuprinol Urban Slate to reduce their impact, or cover them in plants.

Then when you walk to the back of the garden and turn around, you’re facing the widest part, with all those parallel lines widening out. You lose all the niggly bits and get the best value from your garden.

If you’re stuck on something in your own garden, drop me a message and I’ll tell you what I’d do.

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