The last two and a half weeks at Hampton Court have been spent erecting green oak structures and planting thousands of oak seedlings, as well as over a thousand purple heather plants. All of this and more in order to create the second Quilted Velvet garden of the summer. This garden is much easier to... Read more..

We received our Gold medal for the Quilted Velvet Garden at Hampton Court Palace last Monday evening and started building the third Quilted Velvet Garden at Tatton Park at 8am the next morning! No time to bask in the glory and enjoy the garden. This was the strangest feeling of the whole campaign - never... Read more..

Three Quilted Velvet show gardens in one summer! It did seem like a tall order back in the autumn of 2008 and believe me it has been extremely hard work. I have only had two days off since March and it’s starting to show! However, despite the stress it’s been a fantastic experience made all the better... Read more..

Last week I visited Pott Row First School in Kings Lynn - the first school in the eastern region to reach level 5 of the RHS Campaign for School Gardening Benchmarking scheme. The school's prize is a day with RHS educaton staff doing fun gardening activities, plus a tree or plant of their choice... Read more..

I attended the East Feast Open Forum. 16 schools have formed a creative partnership with Eastfeast a charity that provides participating schools with artistic practitioners to stimulate creative learning. I have been working with some of these schools. Spring Meadow Primary School for example is one... Read more..

Hi all, I recently visited Southfield Junior School, Peterborough. The school was having a fun run and plant sale to raise funds for its school gardening project and celebrate their new Victorian garden. The children had a non-uniform day (mufti), instead of paying £1 to wear non-uniform; children had... Read more..

An old press contact of mine wrote to a number of ex-PRs this morning on Facebook pondering why so many of us chose to become garden designers. My answer was that gardening is particularly good therapy to cope with years of abuse from journalists. This is in part true - PR baiting is a sport enjoyed... Read more..

Schools in the East of England have been gardening right up to the end of term - despite the demands of Christmas productions.... On monday I helped students at Castle Hill Middle School in Haverhill make Christmas decorations made from willow. I worked with a group of students where english is their... Read more..

The garden will be open today (Friday) from 12pm – 4pm. (Last entry into the garden at 3pm). Saturday and Sunday we will be aiming to open the garden from 10am - 4pm. (Last entry into the garden at 3pm) These are obviously subject to weather conditions. Also please note that there is limited car parking... Read more..

It’s that time again………… early February and every kitchen gardener is itching to get outside and sow their first seeds of 2010………..but mother nature is slightly against us as not only are my raised beds far too wet – but also ever so slightly frozen, so unless things change quickly I’d say its going... Read more..