We all know that our climate is changing, and that the impacts of this are becoming noticeably more rapid and dramatic. We are now all too familiar with the seemingly continual reports in the media about record-setting temperatures and rainfall here in the UK, and across the globe we are
seeing climate-influenced disasters almost on a weekly basis.
At the time of writing, the majority of England has just emerged from the
second heatwave of the summer. Another is forecast in a week or so. The increasing frequency and seriousness of extreme weather events shouldn’t come as a shock to any of us. Our climate is changing at a rapid pace, and we have to be able to adapt accordingly.
I recently made the trip down to West Sussex to visit the ‘rewilded’ walled garden on the Knepp estate. The Knepp project has been well documented in recent years, as the 3,500-acre estate is transformed from a loss-making arable farm into one of the UK’s leading rewilding experiments.
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A brand new year provides a perfect opportunity to plan a new garden.
But making a fresh start with our outdoor space can seem a little daunting, so here are my three top tips for planning a new garden
Do you have any water in your garden? I am often asked to include a water
feature of some sort or another in the gardens I design for my clients, and it
isn’t hard to see why.
As we drift into summer, it is great time to think about what our gardens are for. I know this might sound like an odd question, but it’s one of the starting
points when I am beginning to design a new garden.
In January, I travelled to Manchester for the inaugral Wilding Gardens Conference. Over two fantastic days, an extraordinary range of speakers talked about the important role our gardens can play in tackling the
climate crisis that threatens us all.
OK, I’m going to stick my neck out and say that May is my favourite month for
our gardens. It’s such a wonderfully optimistic time, the weather is usually
pretty good and lots of amazing plants are taking their moment to shine.
We are increasingly aware of the important role our gardens can play in encouraging and protecting wildlife. With a very hot and dry spring and summer, 2026 has been a challenging year for people and wildlife alike, so anything we can do to support insects, birds and small mammals over the coming months has got to be a good thing.
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Well, what a summer. With several heatwaves and weeks without rain, we have just experienced the reality of how our summers are likely to be for the
foreseeable future. We have also seen the impact of hot and dry weather on our gardens, and particularly for our lawns.