Roots and All

This week, I’m talking to journalist and author Val Bourne about her book The Living Jigsaw: the secret life in your garden. Val is a perfect example of a gardener who loves ornamental plants as much as she respects the wildlife in her garden. She walks the walk, produces writing based on her observations and has a palpable love for all the things that share her garden. We talk about how to achieve an outdoor space where there’s room for everything to flourish.

This week I’m chatting to author of the book I Ate Sunshine for Breakfast, Michael Holland. The book is a botanical and environmental textbook for children that makes learning about even quite complex topics such as plant scientific names seem like fun. I talk to Michael about activities you can do with children using stuff you can find in your cupboard, about some of the most engaging horticultural concepts for kids and how you can make learning entertaining.

This episode is the fourth and final part of the Design Experts series and this week’s guest is New Zealand-based garden designer Xanthe White who runs Xanthe White Design. As with the other episodes in the design experts series, we talk about the practicalities of running a design practice in the region, what the client design relationship looks like and the evolving face of garden design. The interview starts with me asking Xanthe about the beliefs underpinning her practice. 

This is an interview I did with garden designer and author of the book Scent Magic, Isabel Bannerman. If you read the book, you will realise that ethereal, ephemeral scents make up an integral part of our very being and yet we don’t even have a consensus on a vocabulary to describe them. Isabel talks about smells, good and bad and how you can use them in your garden.

I’m speaking to Peter Marren, author of Chasing the Ghost: My Search for all the Wild Flowers of Britain. Peter travelled the length and breadth of Britain to track down those native species he’d never seen growing in the wild. This episode is perfect for those of us lucky enough to still have access to nature and my hope is that by the end of it at least one or two of you will have a new hobby/obsession!

This week I’m talking to anarchist organiser, agroecologist and grassroots herbalist, Nicole Rose. Nicole runs the Solidarity Apothecary, an organisation supporting mainly prisoners and refugees either by supplying herbal remedies or by facilitating the growing and making of these. We talk about Nicole’s work to help prisoners, refugees and other facing state repression by helping them with their physical and mental wellbeing through a connection to nature.

This week I’m speaking to Tomos Jones. There are 17000 plant species from all over the world currently residing in our gardens here in the UK. A small percentage of these manage to jump the garden fence and survive in the wild and a smaller percentage still become a problem. Tomos is working to predict which plants may become a problem in the future, using a range of forecasting techniques, coupled with help from gardeners.

This week I’m speaking to butterfly expert Peter Eeles. If you’re interested in encouraging more butterflies into your garden and you’d like to know what plants to grow to encourage them, we discuss how you can be a better gardener for butterflies and it doesn’t stop at growing some buddleia! Peter is the author of the book Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies. The book is THE definitive guide to UK butterflies and documents the different life stages from adults down to the smallest eggs.

This week I’m speaking to Nicola Mehdi who’s been making and using natural dyes using the contents of her own garden. If you’re stuck indoors, making dyes is a fantastic pastime that you should be able to do using just the contents of your garden or store cupboard. This episode is for anyone looking to learn a new skill or keep children entertained and will hopefully give you enough pointers to go off and explore natural dyes for yourself.

This week’s guest is writer Julian Hoffman and we’re talking about his book Irreplaceable. Julian speaks about why it’s imperative that we stop the destruction of precious landscapes, how we can help at the individual level and why it’s vital to maintain the connection between people and place.

This week I’m talking to Aaron Bertelsen about his new book ‘Grow Fruit & Vegetables in Pots’. The book is both a practical guide to growing food in containers and a recipe book, providing inspiration for what to do with the abundance of produce you’ll have once you’ve mastered the art. Aaron gives tips on the best fruit for containers, how to avoid flea beetle, what to feed your crops, cooking with lettuce, plus loads of other invaluable advice for those growing their own produce in containers.

This week I’m speaking to Jeff Lowenfels, author of the ‘Teaming With’ series of books, specifically about the latest volume in the series ‘Teaming With Fungi: The Organic Grower’s Guide to Mycorrhizae’. I start by asking Jeff what inspired him to write his series of books, which deal with some in-depth scientific concepts around plant growth and nutrition, and also to explain what mycorrhizal fungi actually is.

In this episode, I’m talking to ecologist and woodland owner Simon Leadbeater. We talk specifically about whether trees are sacred; spoiler alert, Simon thinks they are and he explains eloquently and convincingly why. However, if you believe trees are sacred and sentient, a problem arises, namely do you have any right to move them, to prune them or even to move amongst them. And it’s questions like these that we touch on in the episode.

This episode I’m speaking to Victoria Leedham, Co-Curator and Gallery Manager of the Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden. Victoria is responsible for sourcing and placing sculpture in the garden, alongside owner garden designer Anthony Paul. We spoke about Victoria’s work, about the sculpture garden and also how you can select and place sculptures in your own garden.

This is the hotly anticipated Part 3 of the Design Experts series and my guest is South African garden designer Leon Kluge. I spoke to Leon about his work and the particular set of challenges he faces in South Africa. And let’s just say, you might just think twice the next time you moan about aphids… This series has very kindly been sponsored by the London College of Garden Design.