Gardening 2026

Not absolutely sure it needs a new thread every year but it's sort of traditional.

Just back from a week away and kind of convinced myself that various things on windowsills would have germinated and/or look happy but of course they haven't. In fact, the sweet peas on the garage windowsill have been decimated, presumably by rodents.

Have a plant list - Santolina Etrusca, Phlomis - Edward Bowles, Patrinia Scabiosifolia, Asphodeline Lutea - that I'd kind of wanted to pick up on holiday [UK] but didn't.

I have just got an allotment and put my back out buying a shed for it, so bookmarked

Very bummed to not be gardening this year. Every year it feels like it hits harder that I'm wasting time NOT growing things. I'm gonna throw some grow bags on my fire escape this year but not til it's reliably warmer.

I did rescue 4 free hellebores that I'm sheltering in our foyer until the ground thaws. Might be able to plant those tomorrow and have flowers soon!

tidied the balcony last week, was warm enough to stand out on it for an hour or two. it's tiny but has wooden decking from the previous owner which i need to sand and varnish when the weather improves.

have a decent plan for veg/herbs now but considering what i'll do with the main concrete planter (it's a nice feature of the balconies that they all have a large one of these built into the concrete). another thing i find tricky when it comes to flowers is how to fill a given space, like some stuff grows taller or is a single stem, other things are more like bunches. lol i know how basic my attempt to explain this sounds.

i guess buying plants in person it's easy to see the spread/size of something but buying seeds it feels harder. i sort of want the concrete planter to be full of nice colourful flowers that spread evenly. a mix of them would be brilliant but i would also be cool with one nicely flowering plant. last year i just kind of bought loads of nursery plants and put them in there, and it was a bit of a mish mash but p nice in the end. this year i will try to make it a bit neater, but a certain amount of trial and error is perhaps inevitable.

Thank you for this thread djh!

Nasturtiums can be good for filling up a planter plus you can eat them. Begonias work too.

I just ordered a bunch of seeds - typical mix of tomatoes, courgette, lettuce etc. I now have a greenhouse so can start them in there. Maybe keep em in there too, who knows?

I have two dwarf peach trees that are already flowering in the greenhouse. Crazy stuff. I didn't get many fruits out of them last year but that's mainly (I think) because I didn't realise I should hand-pollinate to help them along, particularly as they're in the greenhouse and won't get as many, if any, wandering bees etc.

For the first time I'm going to try to grow a purely decorative bush, in a shady corner where nothing has ever really grown, certainly not vegetables. It gets a little waterlogged, is north facing, not great. I'm going to try two different "Euonymus fortunei" bushes. I'm hoping they essentially anchor that dark corner and don't spread too much. https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/96928/euonymus-fortunei-emerald-n-gold-(v)/details

They need to be "well drained" so I'm (sigh) going to dig that corner up and add some sand to the mix before planting them in

Is there a way of figuring out what a tree is without its leaves? An app maybe? I have three trees on my space and I’m none the wiser what they are.

Nasturtiums can be good for filling up a planter plus you can eat them. Begonias work too.

i actually found some seeds sold as 'mixed balcony flowers' on chiltern seeds website. the user reviews were p good and they sound quite nice and varied all going well. will fill a box or two with those and see what happens.

What plants do you like, LocalGarda? And what part of the process do you like? I think, for a balcony and/or with limited space, there might be an argument for buying grown plants rather than having windowsills full of seedlings (unless you enjoy that bit - which I do).

I'm with Tracer Hand in that I'd almost always have some nasturtiums. Might be worth ordering the Chilterns Seeds catalogue which is kind of plant porn?

(Written before reading your last post but posting anyway).

I have quite enjoyed watching seeds grow when I've done it, like with chard last year, so I'll prob do a little more of that this time around.

As regards what plants I like I can see loads I think are nice or look nice, but last year with the concrete planter they didn't all necessarily look good in the one box, it was a bit messy. Still nice though. I like colourful plants I guess for summer. I see a lot of window boxes when out and about that look like a nice mix of some colourful plants and greener things. The selection online is kind of intimidating in a way, like it's hard to plot out a combo of stuff in a planter based on photos of each flower? My experience is if I looked at A-Z of all the seeds available I'd have seen about ten that seem nice before I get past A. And not because I don't really care just like, I'm not too discriminating about colourful flowers.

A catalogue on paper might make it easier, the websites are a bit much.

They need to be "well drained" so I'm (sigh) going to dig that corner up and add some sand to the mix before planting them in

Euonymus fortunei is very invasive in the eastern usa, definitely grows in high-clay soils, weird to think that it could be picky like that!

haha i put some ivy in to cover an old brick wall and my mom couldn’t believe it she’s like “you’re PLANTING ivy??”

maybe it’ll be fine in that soil with my doing anything to it idk all i know is that it basically never dries out

Is there a way of figuring out what a tree is without its leaves? An app maybe? I have three trees on my space and I’m none the wiser what they are.

― a hoy hoy, Sunday, March 8, 2026 9:03 AM (three hours ago)

people can do a lot of identification from buds, leaf scars, bark, etc., but it's definitely harder. the inaturalist seek app might be helpful. i think it doesn't require an account--you can just point it at a thing and it will do its best to identify it. also this exists: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/british-trees/tree-id-app/

Today sowed tomato and pepper seeds (indoors), chard and beetroot (outdoors). This time of year I always get a rush of optimism, every seed will grow, it's all going to look the way I imagine! Reality is for later.

Thanks circlez

There’s a new gardening programme coming to Netflix. I’m not entirely sure I’ll like it but there’s only an hour a week of Gardener’s World so I’m sure I’ll find space.Beechgrove also back on 2 April.

A couple of my clients have been very generous with self-seeded offspring, so I’ve gained a Nandina domestica, a chunk of Cyclamen hederifolium and three Hellebore argutifolia for the raised beds surrounding the square of plastic grass behind my rented house. I also finally planted my muscari, daffodils, Iris reticulata and tulips! God knows when they’ll flower, but at least they are in the ground. I stuck them in the fridge for a few days first to give them a fake winter.

Forgot the link to the trailer!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32kQ9Niy7EA

_Is there a way of figuring out what a tree is without its leaves? An app maybe? I have three trees on my space and I’m none the wiser what they are.

― a hoy hoy, Sunday, March 8, 2026 9:03 AM (three hours ago)_

For plant identification in general, I have the paid version of Picture This and it gets it right 99.999% of the time these days. But I haven’t tested it on leafless trees. At college the worst ident test we had was ‘stick week’, a dozen twigs you had to be able to name in Latin. Shudders.

Here, have Asphodeline Lutea and Patrinia Scabiosifolia to get outside. Tulips are tantalisingly close to flowering. Have been growing things - cardoons, squash, some flowers - on the great, sunny work windowsill, which makes the office seem nicer.

i had my two biggest trees taken down so my garden would get better light. now i just have to make sure my fencing is 8 feet or higher to keep the deer out.

also, if anyone is growing mara des bois strawberries and have some small suckers to mail, let me know!

Initially, djh, I read your post and thought you must have an absolutely massive windowsill if you can grow cardoons and squash on it!

Tomorrow I put a shed together. Wish me luck.

I’ve put a few up for people and it always takes way longer than you think it will so my advice would be to start as early as you can, just so you don’t end up trying to finish it in the dark. And if you haven’t got a cordless screwdriver, go and buy yourself one today :)

The Plantnet app will do tree identification from a picture of the bark

The big garden project I'm planning this year is digging a wildlife pond

Have messed about with container ponds before with mixed results so excited to try something on a slightly larger scale

Ooh nice, how big are you going for?

this is the question...

I don't have a massive garden so trying to figure out how big/small I can get away with

Realistically, it's probably going to be around 4m²

The bigger the better I reckon! I was in a garden this week, typical longish London garden, and about the bottom third was entirely water, with a decking walkway and seating area. I’d never have thought of going so big, but it was a gorgeous little haven and hopping with wildlife.

do leave space for walking round the edge though and also space for planting round the sides, cos the dangly foliage will help hide the top of the liner as the water level drops and it'll also provide cover for amphibians etc. i built one for a client last year and it was one of the most rewarding things i've done, love going back and seeing it develop. other features i included were a little gravel beach so that hedgehogs etc could access the water safely; an adjacent bog garden which acts as a soakaway for excess water but also great habitat and you can grow a lot of plants there that you simply can't grow anywhere else (it's also in a shadier spot which isn't so great for ponds anyway and that also stops it drtying out too much in the summer); and, most importantly, a nice bench - there's nothing better than just sitting there looking at all the activity going on, especially if you need a calm space to retreat to. lots of pond skaters, water boatmen, dragonflies, frogs and newts there. due to go back there this week, i'll try and take some photos.

sounds lovely Nick

yeah, I have a spot reserved for a bench and planning to incorporate a gravel beach too

I'm in a mid-terrace house with walls all around so I'd be shocked if any frogs or newts find their way to it but nature always surprises

still mulling over the precise planting scheme around it but I do want to get some purple loosestrife and meadowsweet in there. Maybe things like cuckoo flower and ragged robin closer to the pond

all great choices, purple loosestrife especially is a magnet for bees and butterflies

other plants we included were meadowsweet, tiarella, astilbe, candelabra primroses, alchemilla, and also some grasses and sedges. the customer also wanted marsh marigold which can take over a bit but does look lovely. the only failure were the hostas that they also insisted on but they got murked by the slugs within a couple of weeks

Yeah the only place for hostas is on an island in the middle of the pond.

NN, do you know anyone else with a pond who might donate a jam jar full of tadpoles?

I don't, as it happens

but I'm happy enough to see what turns up without my direct intervention

previously I've had huge success breeding mosquito larvae (as well as pond snails and slaters)

welcome to malaria mansions! a healthy ecosystem should reduce that issue in the long term i think

at the risk of overstretching myself, i went and looked at another allotment today. have already got one plot, but that's a little too far away for my liking, so i don't get there as often as i should and consequently it just has boring low maintenance stuff on it like potatoes, onions, brassicas, fruit trees, raspberries etc. the new one is only a ten minute walk away from home, it's one that some friends are having to give up for personal reasons and they want someone they trust to carry on from them. got a great view, a nice seated area round a firepit and also a pretty good sized polytunnel. sorely tempted!

one bad creepy thing though - it's the same site as where they found the baby in the constance marten case :/

I day dream about going here: https://www.gardensillustrated.com/gardens/country/swimming-pond-stay-tomson (It's easy to find on AirBnB).

That said, I bought some pond plants from the local garden centre and grew them in the plastic container that I took them home in and a toad moved in fair quickly (and the cat seems to like drinking the water more than any other).

It might not be true but I get the impression that the owner is quite into the learning from it and might share successes.

x-post - hadn't read all the preceding messages. That's grim, NickB, but, also, it sounds like a positive thing to take up.

that does indeed look like a lovely garden

Spent the weekend mostly not gardening but sitting in the garden and enjoying it. Lots happening all of a sudden.

^ What gardens are for, really.

Can't remember on which threads we've had discussions about this before but is a guided tour of Knepp's walled garden for £45 money well spent?

Who’s doing the tour?

If you get the May Gardener’s World (available now in all good newsagents) the Knepp walled garden is on the list for the 2-for-1 card that comes with it.

I think - and it's possible that I'm being an idiot - on the day I'm nearby, the only option is a guided tour.

well, after a few false starts - one of which entailed me filling in the entire excavation and starting again - the pond is complete. Pretty happy with it, although it obviously needs a lot more planting both in and around the pond

https://i.ibb.co/8gKRM3h8/20260426-114851.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/qYM8qC7B/20260503-142216.jpg

The birds have already flocked to it, and I spotted our local fox drinking from it the other night too

oh shit! that is gonna be so nice once it grows in

That looks awesome!

Those bulbs I planted back in mid-March are all up, though only the tulips (‘Lady Jane’) are flowering. But at least the others will photosynthesise and put on a good show next spring. We have a lot of sun and I cook with a lot of Mediterranean herbs so I went out and spent £12 on some thyme, bay, sage and prostratus rosemary for a pot by the front door. The nursery was hopping with bank holiday shoppers, and they got a fresh delivery yesterday so they’ll make a fortune this weekend.

On the off chance anyone is going to Chelsea on the Wednesday this year, I’m working for a nursery showing off their prize delphiniums in the marquee that day.

Great looking pond!

Not sure which thread to put this, but...While setting up our sprinkler this morning, I came across a massacre in our yard. Four baby bunny bodies strewn across the yard in various states. I saw a cat back there a few days ago, so likely that. Would almost rather a hawk got them instead of some marauding kill seeker. I imagine it was like one of those videos of murder hornets. Nasty scene.

Was watching bits of the coverage of RHS Chelsea on the BBC/iPlayer, with a weird sense of "This isn't for me" despite an interest in "gardens". The crowds don't appeal and I ... I really don't care about what Nick Grimshaw etc, etc thinks about gardens (or anything, for that matter). The distance between "gardeners doing interesting things/their best work" and "minor celebrities being seen" seems so great.

(UK question): Anyone done a "gardening course" alongside doing a full time job? I guess I mean "for fun" distinct from "for career"? Could be online, could involve people in real life (and I think I'd prefer the latter). Am Oxford-ish based, so occasional jaunts to London are achievable. Sort of "to end up with a nice garden" but also to enjoy and have stuff in my life other than work and wine.

Virtually everyone on my course was doing it alongside a job - it was a day a week plus a little homework (mostly learning Latin names or revising for exams) but you could also do it evenings, which just takes twice as long. There were quite a few people doing it just because they wanted to get better at their own garden or allotment. That was RHS Level 2 at Capel Manor, but the college also does Level 1 courses that aren’t quite so full-on. The Regent’s Park campus is your best option from Oxford.

Abingdon & Witney does the RHS course too, but I don’t know anyone who’s done it so couldn’t say how good it is. Also look out for practical workshops at places like the botanic gardens.

Was watching bits of the coverage of RHS Chelsea on the BBC/iPlayer, with a weird sense of "This isn't for me" despite an interest in "gardens". The crowds don't appeal and I ... I really don't care about what Nick Grimshaw etc, etc thinks about gardens (or anything, for that matter). The distance between "gardeners doing interesting things/their best work" and "minor celebrities being seen" seems so great.

Heh, I’m guessing you were watching the highlights from the Monday (press day and judging) which is very slebby and schmoozy. The coverage gets a bit more focused on garden designers and plants over the rest of the week though it can still be pretty banal.

Thing is, the RHS is a horribly old school, white privilege organisation and a great many people who go to Chelsea are silly or posh or both. The show gardens are totally unrealistic - rammed with plants that are primped and tweaked to within an inch of their lives and exhausted by the end of the week (which is why it’s not a great idea to buy anything in the big Saturday sell-off).

BUT. The big marquee is where it’s at - so many amazing plants raised by little nurseries that are often run by just a couple of very dedicated people, and those people are there in person to talk to. That’s where I am for one day a year, helping out a lovely guy who works his arse off for his small business. A free pass in return for a few hours handing out fliers and talking to zillions of people who all seem to want to know how to keep slugs at bay. I wouldn’t pay for a ticket to Chelsea, but I’ll volunteer for the nursery without hesitation.

Thanks Madchen.

It occurs to me that if you want to get better at gardening, some volunteering can really help. It depends a bit on the place and who you get as your supervisor, but I did a day a week rotating round various community gardens and churchyards on the south bank with a super knowledgeable and lovely supervisor who took me under his wing and showed me how to do quite big stuff like pruning apple trees and wisteria. It was invaluable.

Thanks Madchen (and apologies - in my head I'd responded). It sounds wise.

Heading off on a short break tomorrow that should include Sissinghurst, Great Dixter, Dungeness and Knepp. Anywhere else that we should try and fit in?

Charleston?

Oh, and Kew Wakehurst is really near Knepp too.

Today I learned that lightning loosens nitrogen bonds in the atmosphere, and in turn that nitrogen is conveyed down by rain and fertilizes the soil! So a busy lightning season (as we've had here in Chicago) is good for plant growth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yZkEZ_CwBA

That is a great fact, never knew that before!

Did Great Dixter, Prospect Cottage and the Knepp Walled Garden in the end. Have been to the first two before.

Enjoyed Dixter for a mooch and feeling immersed in the garden. I think my gardening slightly changed after visiting last time - aiming for more abundance (in my small garden). Always love seeing the giant fennel, which has remained dinky in mine. Strangely, don't think I'd really thought about Verbascums until a visit there, either. My biggest takeaway was how content the staff/volunteers are. For some reason, I suspect they hold great parties there.

It's always nice to have a glance at Jarman's garden though I don't really venture in. I bought lots of fennel after my first visit. Was intrigued to see how it was being gardened (by Jonny Bruce of the Field Nursery, I think?) and it did feel slightly different from previous visits but can't really capture why. I don't think I've ever seen a good garden overtly inspired by the Prospect Cottage garden - it's something more than some pebbles and some local plants and some beach detritus, isn't it?

Paid for a tour of the walled garden at Knepp. I do remember first reading about the walled garden (probably in Gardens Illustrated) and how they were going to let the paths be a bit messy, which seemed somehow radical but run of the mill. It was rainy and a bit subdued and I had less of a feeling of inspiration than I was anticipating. Enjoyed spotting plants that I grow anyway. I'm probably not going to start gardening like a mildly hungry goat or whatever it is they do. It feel less "arty" than I'd imagined and some of the "leaving stems in the garden" seemed more prosaic than I was expecting. Enjoyed it more than I'm making it sound, though. Was intrigued that I knew that James Hitchmough and Tom Stuart-Smith were involved but had never heard that Jekka McVicar was.

Working from home this week (rare for me) and one of the joys has been staring out of the window at the Verbascum Olympicum, which are looking stunning.

It made me reflect (laugh at myself) for the shift from the original plan for the space than what it is now. The original plan involved some level of restraint including some euphorbias, rudbeckia (including Herbstonne), Helianthus Lemon Queen, Echinops and some sage transplanted from elsewhere. Oh, and fennels (perhaps these came later).

I'm not sure when I started to add more. I definitely liberated a Verbascum (weed version?) from the neighbour's garden when tidying it for them (before growing some Olympicum). A cardoon and an artichoke have been added (the latter looks great). There are various intentional and uninvited poppies, which have been glorious. I bought some Phlomis Russeliana after reading an article on "winter interest". There's Asphodlina Lutea and Patrinia Scabiosfolia (liked the look of them in Gardens Illustrated). I felt obliged to buy Giant Fennel on my first visit to Great Dixter and Ansomnia on my second (though inspired by seeing it at Wisley). There's unintentional Nigella and a solo Bupleurum Rotundifolium.

i've been impatiently waiting over a week now for the wire fencing to arrive for our redone garden. we had a whole bunch of landscaping changes done to our property this spring and the major win i got was to completely revamp our garden. it's doubled in size, i get my hobbit-like entrance gate from wood i hand-hewed, deer can no longer get in, etc. i just want the damn fencing installed so i can actually plant my crops for the rest of the year!

That sounds awesome, DJH.

I continue to inherit plants from lovely clients - three Ipomoeias (colour unspecified) this week. They’ll help cover the landlord’s horrible dark grey fence. Hoping they match the colour scheme - it’s such a small garden (5x5m) so I’m trying my hardest to keep to white, lime green and purply blue. That pretty much means the usual suspects like hardy geraniums, perovskia, lavender and cosmos. Stuff I won’t worry about leaving behind as and when we move again. I got some free Coleus argentatus cuttings too, the only Coleus I like (actually I love it).

The weather is being a right pita though - I was meant to clip a load of box tomorrow but the edges will crisp up in the heat so I need to delay that job for the second time already this year. And I’m not working past 11am in case I pass out, which means less ££ boo. But honestly, this heat can do one.

I'm still working in the heat, but moving very slowly, just like a slug. A very crispy shrivelled up slug. My polytunnel is starting to bulge at the seams with plants I've propagated to plant out in clients gardens, don't really want to risk that in this weather though. Lots of cosmos and colour for the second half of the summer. Got a huge amount of Echium pininana too, like 60 decent sized plants, be a nice surprise for people when they eventually flower

I planted out three plants the other evening and pretty much needed a lie down afterwards ...

I was pulling up some mare's tail that has completely taken over one of our beds, but then I saw a frog hiding in it, and it was indeed nice and cool and damp at the bottom of the stems of mare's tail, so now I've decided to just embrace it for the sake of my precious garden frogs. The fact that this is one less job for me to do in the garden in the summer does not enter into my thinking at all, no ma'am.

The right way to garden, trishyb.

I'm intrigued: does any one try/manage not to water (outside of the obvious things like seedlings, things newly in the ground and things in pots)?

In one of the gardens I look after, I only water newly planted stuff and the raised beds, which are next to a fence so don’t catch the rain. I chose the plants though, so only went with stuff I knew could survive. The other gardens I do were designed/established decades ago and the plant choices are from a time of drizzly summers so they do need water (or ripping out and starting again, which won’t happen).

My garden is mostly chosen for things that ought to survive (veg and stuff that is newly in the ground, aside) but it definitely all looks like it could do with a rain.

Yeah, things usually start to look a bit crispy in August but this year that horrible ‘dead garden’ look is about six weeks early. So many wilting hydrangeas in south London.

Completely unrelated but… I really struggle to communicate to clients “your shrub hasn’t been properly pruned for years (by you or your previous gardener, please don’t be offended) and is full of dead, diseased and damaged stuff. When I remove all that, it’s likely the plant will look pretty bad but honestly, it’s for the best as the extra light will mean it bushes right out and gives you a ton more flowers than you’re used to in future. And in years to come, it will look much nicer after I’ve pruned it. Please trust me.”

I can understand some trepidation about pruning - less so when things are obviously diseased or dead - but it seems odd not to accept the advice of someone you are paying to garden and/or who is "expert".

I think it’s about the attachment people feel for their gardens. At one place there a a decorator painting the whole exterior of the house while I’m also there - they just let him get in with it, and they never ask if he’d like to use their tools either (er no thanks, mine are sharp and clean, are yours?)

That makes sense (and I can imagine that's fucking frustrating).

I’m not in such bad humour today because today’s clients, who I’ve been with for over a year now, are lovely. This summer they have grapes, plums, a wisteria that is putting on growth at last and an acer which is no longer a stick in a tiny pot, but a happy, branching tree. And I have a day off tomorrow, hurrah.

A photo of Verbascum Olympicum (I think) on Great Dixter's Instagram was making me chuckle - Dixters look glorious; mine have taken a hammering and there's barely a flower left.

A practical question: curry plant, cola plant (artemesia) and santolina all looking raggedy.

I'd regret cutting them back hard, wouldn't I?

Mind you I don't have experience with curry or santolina directly, but from dealing with other woody shrubs and bushing type herbs like lavender, catmint/nepata (all mints, actually), oregano, marjoram, sage, etc, I would guess that cutting them back is actually the right thing to do? Gives them a chance to regrow healthier stems, just look for places on the old woody stems that buds could come from and cut above those.

I’ve seen an awful lot of scrubby looking curry plants this year. A bit surprising, as I always thought they did well in hot, dry weather. I wouldn’t cut anything back hard right now but later, yes, once it is cooler and after they’re done flowering. Agree that it’s fine if you cut above the lowest leaves on the stem. Lavender can sometimes resprout from a stump if you’re feeling daring.