100sE W

£4.99 February 2024 Issue No.95

OF N AS
IDE

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PEONY PLANTS
WORTH OVER
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FEBRUARY ISSUE JANUARY 17 - FEBRUARY 13

FEEL THE
How to garden yourself happy

PLUS

Oodles of bright
buys for instant
cheer p.62

Bliss!
The very best
scented roses
to plant now

Grow a pot of
health-giving
gooseberries

10 easy ways to enhance your wellbeing p.16
Quick projects to perk up your plot p.30
Mood-boosting blooms p.77

*T&CS APPLY, SEE PAGE 110

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COV ER PHOTOS: DOBBIES.COM, H OUSE OF FOOD, SH UTTERSTOCK, DAV IDAU STIN ROSES.CO.UK,
HOPESGROV ENU RSERIES.CO.U K. THIS PAGE: GAP PHOTOS, SHU TTERSTOCK, ALAM Y, NEXT.CO.U K

ou Ce
td le
oo br
r l at
iv e
in
g

Simp
pleasu le
in Febr res
uar y

Lengthen
ing days
Sweet pe
a seedlin
a sunny gs growing on
Wonderfu windowsill
l witch h
azel bloo
ms

I’m sitting in my garden as I write this, wellies on and duvet jacket zipped up.
The sunshine is starting to filter through the mist, bringing a sheen to the
birch trees’ snow-white bark and a shimmer to freshly frosted seedheads,
and this moment in the low light of winter’s end feels more enriching than
any shop-bought supplement. There’s very little colour in my plot yet, but the
view is still pleasing. The range of neutrals rivals the women’s fashion floor in
John Lewis, from the chunky-knit taupe tangles of untrimmed lavender spires to the sheer nude stems
of spent sedums. Even the falling-down framework of faded bamboo canes in the veggie bed looks good
slung with silken cobwebs. And the sense of life burgeoning behind this quiet scene is unmistakable.
Look closely and there are buds and leaf tips to discover, scratch a bare brown branch with a thumbnail
and you’ll find bright green beneath. Spring is poised, patiently waiting for the right weather window
and then – pow! – it’ll be go, go, grow! It’s honestly all hugely exhilarating, and I really can’t wait to get
started. Having this outside space makes me a cog within an immense cycle of life, promptly putting
my worries into perspective. It physically connects me to the land with dirt beneath my fingernails, and
lets me sway nature to create a space that gladdens my heart and calms my soul. A half-hour potter
slows my whirling mind, and the simple pleasure of seeing the first spring bee brings hope in a world
of distressing headlines. So let’s not be shy about how gardening helps us to be happy! This issue is
dedicated to the pursuit of garden joy: I know my wellbeing is directly linked to how much time I find
to spend in the garden, so why not actively increase the feel-good factor for an even bigger fix?
Do share any ideas you try, the details you
need to get in touch are just below.

Editor Emma Kendell
Share some garden joy in your plot!
You can email us at
moderngardens@bauermedia.co.uk
and find us on
Facebook Modern Gardens Magazine
Instagram @ModernGardens
moderngardensmagazine.co.uk

g with a comfy
Swing into sprincha
to-and-fro ir, p53

Discover this natural phenomenon
in your garden now! p90

Inside this

MONTH...
36

Steal designer ideas from
this swish garden makeover.

FREE

LAVENDER &
PEONY PLANTS
WORTH OVER
*

£42!
p110-113

Garden makeovers
26

“It’s our little haven”

A concrete-covered plot is reimagined
into an accessible living space.

This stylish outside space now showcases
its owner’s passion for all things Italian.

“I don’t worry about a few
weeds”
48

An overgrown plot has been transformed
into a stress-free space full of colour.

Ask the designer
I’m in the garden

* T& C S A P P LY – J U S T PAY P OS TAG E

83

Bring me sunshine

Grace your space with a cheery wreath
that’ll fade gracefully.
102

Oh balls!

Plant soothing foliage spheres for a
calming vibe in your outside space.

Fiona’s patch

Share the joy of bright new bulbs.
46

59

ON THE COVER

Spend a sunny afternoon planting the
feel-good factor in your garden.

90

Garden
joy

SPECIAL

ON THE COVER

Selina’s garden style
Immune-boosting brew

This spiced cinnamon tipple is an
antioxidant powerhouse.

Simple projects
Grow some happy

Grow a grapevine

Embrace the Nature’s Canvas trend.

Our garden crush

It’s where we’d like to be this month!

30

74

35

Take a peek at this pretty plot full of
rainbow veggies and fluffy chooks.
114

Switch up a bunch of M&S roses into a
swish bouquet with tasty truffle sticks.

Outdoor living

Your problem garden solved.
88

Be my Valentine

Step-by-step to a luscious late-summer
harvest of seedless grapes.

“It’s a reflection of
everything I love”
36

86

60

Get inspir-alled

Discover the wonder of Fibonacci hidden
in your garden and be awed and amazed!

Treat your Valentine to a
blooming tasty bouquet.

60

Plant these beautiful
mood-boosting blooms.

6

77

Lovely stuff for
your outside space.

Easy ideas
6

Earthy pleasures

ON THE COVER

What to buy, make and do this month.
12

Maximalist me-time

Nail this trend in your outside space.
16

Garden yourself happy

Try these 10 steps and squeeze more joy
from your outside space. ON THE COVER
40

Stop and smell the roses

Now’s the perfect time to plant a rose
with a scent you adore. ON THE COVER
42

Cope with a slope

Upgrade a tricky incline into usable space.
62

30

Grow some happy in your garden
with our quick afternoon projects.

We predict a riot!

ON THE COVER

Upgrade your garden from boring to
bright with these colourful buys.
70

What to do in your garden

Keep your plot looking good this month.
Cheer your garden with this
fun-to-make upcycled wreath.

83

108

Gooseberries

Over to you...
84

Q&A

Got a question about your garden?
We’ve got the answer.
96

We love outdoor living

You share your garden highlights.
99

My happy place

Take a pew in this productive plot.
100

Love your winter aconites

Take a closer look at this bright bloom.
101

Paws & whiskers

Enjoying your garden with your pets.

ON THE COVER

Grow your own vitamin-supplement
berries with our easy step-by-step advice.

68

SUBSCRIBE TODAY!

Best buys
14

Blooming lovely

Beautiful plants ready to buy now.
34

Layer up the loveliness

It’s a fast fix to welcome wellbeing into
your outside space with these easy adds.
53

We
LOVE
this!

Swing into spring

Watch your garden come back to life in
the to-and-fro bliss of a swaying seat.
77

Treat your garden to...

Mood-boosting blooms, with expert
advice to help them thrive. ON THE COVER

✽ Get more of what you love
without spending a fortune with a
Modern Gardens Subscription.

EARTHY
DREAM

PLANT

6 MODERN GARDENS FEBRUARY 2024

G ROW

PICK

MAKE

BUY

EASY IDEAS

Sneak warmweather vibes

If it feels too long a wait until your
hydrangeas bloom again, this garland
of artificial ones could be just the ticket
to bridge the gap. Each flower cluster
has teeny solar lights nestled inside
for a cheery glow after-dark. Arrange
in an evergreen for extra contrast and
when summer does finally arrive, they’ll
shine even brighter so we suggest
you leave them be all year long! Solar
USB Hydrangea Starburst String (200
LEDs), £29.99 lights4fun.co.uk

MAKE
LIFE
LOVELY

PUSSY
WILLOW
With their furry silvery tufts starting to adorn gnarly

FEATURE: FIONA GALLEY. PHOTOS: GARDENIMAGE.COM, GAP PHOTOS, SARAH RAVEN, RICHARD FAULKS

branches now, pussy willows (also known as grey
willows or goat swallows) have a look of whimsy
and intrigue that makes for a bewitching display.
Forage a few stems for free and display with verve
in a large zinc vase or jug. Forgo any water and
they’ll remain as buds for a good three weeks.

SEEDS OF HOPE
Start these on the windowsill, ready
to plant out once spring has sprung.
Cosmos ‘Xanthos’, £3.99/20 seeds
suttons.co.uk

DINNER FOR TWO?
Hang from your pergola or above
a bistro set for instant atmosphere.
Moroccan Inspired Essaouira Solar
Pendant Light, £22 ellajames.co.uk
GARDEN LOVE
Never underestimate the
power of a steaming
cuppa in a pleasing
mug in the garden!
Hearts Stoneware Mug,
£14.50 sophieallport.com

TEA FOR
TROOPERS
Gardening in grim
weather? A hot cup of
Cold Weather Warrior
Tea (£7.15/50g,
birdandblendtea.com)
is what you need!

We
LOVE
this!

MINI METEO
From a moon phase
clock to a barometer,
thermometer or
hygrometer (us
neither – humidity!),
measure whatever you
like with Mix And Match
Miniature Weather Dials,
£22 each noths.com

PEBBLE PERCH
Made from
waterproof outdoor
fabric in a range
of divine colours,
the Lode Outdoor
Ottoman (from
£359, kingliving.co.uk)
is on our lust list.

➣
FEBRUARY 2024

MODERN GARDENS 7

PHOTO : @ B O R D E HI L LGA R D E N

WHAT
TO PLANT
NOW!

INSTAGRAM
INSPIRATION
While our own gardens are still looking sheepishly bare and

PHOTO: © JONATHAN BUCKL E Y

Elephant garlic
Garlic is such a kitchen staple, and
elephant garlic has bigger cloves
and a milder flavour than regular,
so it’s more versatile – try it
roasted or grate raw onto a salad.
Press the cloves (£9.95/3 cloves,
sarahraven.com), pointy ends up,

bleak, it’s a joy to scroll through the account we’re following this
month, @bordehillgarden. This heritage-listed parkland in Sussex
is vast and professionally tended to, so there’s always something
glorious to coo over, in particular off-the-beaten-track blooms
like this dreamy dwarf crown imperial. And if you want to step
right into those picturesque posts, the gardens reopen to the
public on February 10 – wellies, coats and cameras at the ready!

12cm deep into soil and 30cm
apart. They won’t require much
attention after that, just a little
watering and some sun, and when
the leaves of the garlic start drying
out come September, you’ll know
it’s time to harvest them.

WHEELY GOOD
Rusty old barrow, begone! It’s time
to treat yourself to a lighter, more
practical and altogether plumier
Big Mucker Purple Wheelbarrow
100L, £129.95 wheelbarrows.co.uk

POROUS PIPE
Lay this Leaky
Hose (£15/15m,
hedgesonline.com)
at the base of a
newly planted
hedge to water
it at perfect
snail’s pace.
GET THE POINT
A spade with a pointy
end makes digging holes
so much easier!
Magnusson Wooden
Pointed Digging
Spade, £24 diy.com
HEDGE FUND
Dense, lush and a wildlife
magnet, a hedgerow is an all-round
greener alternative to a garden fence.
Alder Hedging Plant, from £1.19/H4060cm bareroot hedgesdirect.co.uk
8 MODERN GARDENS FEBRUARY 2024

SHAPE SORTERS
The trend for shapely curves is
thankfully staying put, so we’re over
the moon with Dobbies’ affordable
new-season range of pots with ribbed
detailing, pedestals and nuanced
neutral tones. Shoreline Simplicity Pots,
from £16.99/30cm pot dobbies.com

EASY IDEAS
Too pretty to eat? We defy you to resist these
buttery bites. Makes 10
YOU WILL NEED
✽ 180g unsalted butter, softened
✽ 100g caster sugar
✽ Zest of 1 lemon
✽ 1 egg
✽ 300g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
✽ 160g icing sugar
✽ 4tbsp lemon curd
WHAT TO DO
1 Line two trays with baking paper. Cream 100g
butter with the caster sugar, then add the zest.
Beat in the egg, then mix in the flour to form
a stiff dough. Bring the dough together into a
ball, wrap with clingfilm and chill for 1 hour.
2 Divide the dough in half and dust a surface
with flour. Roll out one half to 20cm2 and cut out
10 flowers, re-rolling the cut-offs if needs be, and
lay on the tray. Repeat to make 10 more flowers,
cutting a 2cm-wide circle in the centres of this
second batch. Chill both trays for 20 mins.
3 Bake at 180°C for 10-15 mins until golden.
Allow to cool on the trays until hard.
4 Whisk the icing sugar and remaining butter.
Spread a thin layer onto the biscuits without
holes. Top with a dot of lemon curd then press
the holed biscuits on top.
AND RELAX!
Flowing water is so
therapeutic and the
plug-in Solis Water
Feature with Light
Display (£249, ivylinegb.
co.uk) means you can enjoy
the benefits post-sunset.

MAKE IT!

A LITTLE
OF WHAT
YOU FANCY

ve a flower
a
h
’t
n
o
d
u
o
y
f
I
TIP
template
a
e
k
a
m
t
s
ju
r,
e
tt
cookie cu
t around it
u
c
d
n
a
d
r
a
c
m
o
fr

RECIPE: LIZ O’KEEFE; PHOTO: HOUSE OF FOOD

Biscuit blooms

3 BE-MY-VALENTINE BUYS
Treat the gardener in your life with a fab
February 14th prezzie.
DIGGIN’ IT
Greenman Heart Shaped Trowel,
£12.99 greenmangardentools.com

SPROUT ALL ABOUT IT!
This sweet suckling will hold your book open
while you read and keep your page marked
when you’re not. Suck UK Sprouting Leaf
Bookmark, £5/3 amazon.co.uk

LOVE GROWS
Love Plant Marker Set, from £9
GraceAndFavourHome at etsy.com
FLOCK TOGETHER
Love Heart Swallows Hanging Ornament,
£26 shop.nationaltrust.org.uk

➣
FEBRUARY 2024

MODERN GARDENS 9

EASY IDEAS

Seedhead stand
Snipping spent stems to clear your garden?
Enjoy any surviving seedheads indoors a while
longer with this fast-to-fashion holder.
YOU WILL NEED
✽ Fairly straight stick
✽ Secateurs
✽ Seedhead stems
✽ Twine

PROJECT: SUE MARTIN; PHOTO: RICHARD FAULKS

Quick
make!

WHAT TO DO
1 Cut two about-the-same-length sections from
the stick.
2 Use the twine to bind them tightly together,
criss-crossing the twine for a pretty effect, and
tie to secure.
3 Lay the bound holder on a flat surface and
carefully push seedhead stems into any small
gaps between the two sticks.
NIFTY NOOK
When your cushions
are still in storage,
wouldn’t a perch
just outside the back
door be handy?
This one’s a bobby
dazzler, lightweight
to move and slender
enough to position
in a tight spot.
EDDERUP Garden
Bench Natural,
£139.99 jysk.co.uk

so it’s
le
g
n
a
n
a
t
a
s
d
n
me
TIP Snip the ste
g secure fit
u
n
s
a
r
fo
in
m
e
easier to push th
3 GLASS AMBIENCE LAMPS
Take one of these battery-powered beauties out
into the garden with you for after-dark drinks.
GREEN
DREAM
LIPA Glass Dark
Green Table Lamp,
£39/H27.5cm
oliveandolive.co.uk

CURVE APPEAL
Cordless Glass Fluted Ribbed
Battery Lamp, £39.95/H19.5cm
or £52.95/H28cm sparkle.lighting

10 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

GIVE US
A SWIRL
Cordless Swirl
Glass Table Lamp,
£36.95/H16.5cm
sparkle.lighting

TIDY TRELLIS
Get your garden structures sorted
while beds and walls are bare.
Outdoor Leaf Trellis Zinc (also
in Bronze), £59.99 ivylinegb.co.uk
SMART
START
Pots need
support too! This
lovely is stylish
enough to look
good before your
plant springs into
life. Outdoor Pot
Plant Support
Zinc, £34.99
ivylinegb.co.uk
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
The only decision here is
whether to put it in the front
or back garden! Wildflower
Welcome Sign, £14
shop.nationaltrust.org.uk

AS ADVERTISED
ON

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FREE
on
0808
189
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ŽƌǀŝƐŝƚǁǁǁƐƟůƚnjĐŽƵŬ

EASY IDEAS

MAXIMALIST

me-time

RESTING
STATE
Supportive
chairs with backs
and arms are
conducive to
comfort, and
decent seat pads
are a must. Rattan
Rope Bistro Set
Natural, £149
dunlem.com

Trend

A space where you can go for some me-time
and mindfulness in whatever form pleases
you – just watching your garden counts –
doesn’t have to feel mere and minimalistic.
A dark backdrop has a cosy cocooning effect,
and textured curiosities can stimulate intrigue
and pleasure. Ensure unison by adhering to a
theme such as this modern jungle look, and
choose accessories in warming colours to
avoid darkness overload.

alert!
TRANQUIL TONES
Seek out cut-out lanterns
for dispersed light and
pretty shadows. Solar
Light Leaf Lantern, £16
greatgardensonline.com

MONKEYING AROUND
Include a few playful pieces
that will make you smile such as
this Marcel Swinging Monkey
Indoor/Outdoor Light, £290
dowsingandreynolds.com

FEATURE: FIONA GALLEY

AMBER
AMBROSIA
This Amber
Wine Glass is
pleasing in price
as well as looks.
£5 dunelm.com

OUT OF THE
ORDINARY
Spark awareness
by incorporating
plants that have
interesting
and imperfect
silhouettes. They
don’t need to be
real! The Outdoor
Living Company
101cm Cerus Cactus
in Plastic Pot, £74.99
robertdyas.co.uk

COLOUR THERAPY
Patterns in soft warm tones can have a
mesmerising effect. Chillan Cushion Cover
(left), £16 laredoute.co.uk and Bronx Diamond
Geometric Cushion, £24 next.co.uk

DRAW THE EYE
Adorn a backdrop with pretties
in dark and neutral tones to add
texture and dimension, not colour.
Indoor/Outdoor Artisan Leaf Wall
Art 85cm, £50 dunelm.com
GRAIN EVENT
Use a stain instead of paint
to achieve a strong colour
that lets the woodgrain
pattern show through. Wood
Stain + Protect – Ebony, £22.50/
2.5L protekwoodstain.co.uk

12 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

SIMPLY
SNUG
Happiness is
impossible to
achieve if you’re
cold! Cream
Chunky Hand
Knitted Throw,
L120cm x
W150cm, £35
direct.asda.com
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Stick to the black and neutral palette with
this Homemaker Black & White Leaf Indoor
& Outdoor Rug, £20 direct.asda.com

ASHWOOD
NURSERIES
x
x
x
x

+HOOHERUH 7RXUV )HEUXDU\ 

ASHWOODNURSERIES.COM

Contemporary versatile Dipping Tanks
are the water feature for a modern garden

All products proudly made in the UK

See more at
www.thedippingtankcompany.co.uk

E Mail
sales@thedippingtankcompany.co.uk

Social Media
@thedippingtankcompany

Try our pick of the most beautiful plants you can buy now
‘PRAIRIE FIRE’ £4.30/3L pot
The bright orange and green strappy foliage
of this Carex testacea adds much-needed
warmth through the colder months.
Height & Spread 50cm. grasslands.co.uk

‘EVERGOLD’

3

£9.99/2L pot

EVERGREEN

sedges

Swirling golden leaves with
deep green margins make this
Carex oshimensis stand
out, adding fab texture and
colour to a winter garden.
Height & Spread 30cm.
jacksonsnurseries.co.uk

BUCHANAN’S
SEDGE £4.50/9cm pot
Soften the edges of paths
with Carex buchananii,
a lovely coppery-brown
sedge with gently arching
stems. Versatile and low
maintenance. Height 60cm
Spread 90cm. plantpref.co.uk

CAMELLIA
‘WINTER FESTIVAL’
£42.99/1.5L pot

Add a
touch of
loveliness

Camellias are
known for their
lustrous dark green
foliage and impossibly
exotic-looking blooms for this
time of year. But this fab new
variety tops them all with
a sweet-store of candy
colours. From pure
white to blush pink to
a sumptuously deep
rouge, the stunning
spectrum of flower
tones will shine out
of the winter gloom!
Height & Spread 2m.
crocus.co.uk

14 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

Three plants for glorious golds

9/
£19p.o9t
2L

/
£5m.9p9ot
9c

.96o/t
£7m
p
9c

PRIVET ‘LEMON
AND LIME’

COTTON LAVENDER
‘LEMON FIZZ’

MEXICAN ORANGE
‘SUNDANCE’

With dazzling foliage in a sunny
spot, regularly pruning this
ligustrum will make a hedge or
unusual topiary balls. Height
2m Spread 1m. rhsplants.co.uk

Perfect for a gravel garden
or a well-drained sunny spot,
this santolina rewards with fab
texture all-year-round. Height
50cm Spread 1m. crocus.co.uk

A handsome plant with glossy
yellow leaves that mature to
lime green, this Choisya ternata
glows in sun. Height & Spread
2.5m. ashridgetrees.co.uk

FEATU RE: CLARE WALKER. PH OTOS: ALAMY, GAP PHOTOS, SH UTTERSTOCK

FEEL INSTANT JOY!

BEST BUYS
SPECIES CROCUS
£2.75/25 bulbs
Crocus chrysanthus
fuscotinctus might be
a smaller variety but its
fragrant yellow flowers
with bronze and purple
markings are spectacular!
Height 10cm Spread
5cm. dutchbulbs.co.uk

GIVE IT A TRY

ADD A HINT
OF SPRING
Can you feel the gentle warmth of the sun
on a bright February day? It’ll be a few weeks
yet before the ground is warm enough for
daffs to show their faces, but chirpy crocuses
are much keener to pretty up your garden
with their petals, even if it snows.
How to keep your crocus happy
At this time of the year, you can buy
ready-potted from your local garden centre.
Crocuses prefer a sunny position, including
under deciduous trees that are yet to burst
into leaf. Once the flowers fade, leave foliage
until it turns yellow as this will feed the
corms for next year’s flowers. Love them?
It’s much cheaper to plant dormant
corms September-November – just
remember that squirrels love to dig
up a freshly planted feast so cover
your pot in netting if they’re regular
visitors to your plot.
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 15

How to garden yourself
Follow these 10 simple steps to enhance your wellbeing and
SQUEEZE MORE JOY from your outside space

Garden
joy

FEATU RE: KATIE MASTERS.
PH OTOS: SHUTTERSTOCK, ALAMY, G ETTY IMAGES

SPECIAL

T

here’s a very simple reason why we
love to garden – it’s good for us!
In a world of speed and stressful
news cycles, getting outside into
a space that runs on an altogether slower
rhythm is an incredibly powerful way to
relax and re-balance. That’s not just a
feeling: it’s fully backed by science.
Research has found that gardeners have
a better quality of life than non-gardeners:
more peaceful, more satisfied, happier. And
to fully max your opportunities for backyard
bliss this year, here are 10 surprising insights
about the ways that your outdoor space can
support you to feel at your best. Ready?
Let’s get that in-the-garden glow...

16 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

EASY IDEAS

Trending

now

Maximising the
feel-good factor in
your garden to support
your wellbeing

➣
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 17

Geraniums are our
ultimate reward-foreffort bloom. Almost
impossible to kill,
they bloom for
months without
deadheading and, if you chop
the lot down once the flowers
fade, for many months more!

#1 MATCH
EFFORT TO
EXPECTATION
Back in the ’90s, German sociologist Johannes
Siegrist developed the term ‘the effort-reward
imbalance’. It’s a concept that’s usually applied
to our jobs: when we work, we want the effort
we put in to be fairly and equitably rewarded.
When it is, we’re happy; when it’s not, we have
a negative reaction.
That idea of fairness goes deep and what’s
true at work is also true in the garden. So be
honest with yourself and consider how much
time you want to spend gardening, and how
much time you want to simply be in the garden.
Because there’s no shame in having a plot full
of hassle-free plants so you get to laze on the
patio as much as you like!
It’s equally absolutely fine if you love a
finickity plant so much that you’re happy to
pamper it for the prize of a bloom or two. The
trick is to do enough work to feel proud of your
effort, but not enough that gardening becomes
a chore – and that level is different for everyone,
not just because some of us are lazier gardeners
than others, but because we all appreciate
aspects such as weeks of flowers or evergreen
leaves to a greater or lesser extent.
Think back over the past year and consider
which plants rewarded you well for your efforts,
and which were a real bore in comparison to
the joy they delivered. We’re guessing that the
former are your favourites! So perhaps it’s time
to gift those others to make room for plants
that are a better match. And when it’s time to
shop, don’t be swayed by showstopper blooms!
Make a hard-headed choice based on a plant’s
reward-to-effort ratio, matching that to the
amount of effort you’re prepared to put in.
18 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

EASY IDEAS

TRY THIS!

Stop, watch and enjoy. Feeling
connected to nature has been found
to be more important for wellbeing
than our socioeconomic status

#3 FOLLOW
YOUR NOSE!

Soil is vital fo
for pl
plan
anttss, b
an
buut it’s
itt’ss sur
urpr
prris
p
i in
ingl
ngl
gly
importantt for huma
huma
m nss too
oo.. B
Baack
ack
ck in thhe
1970s, Bririttish resseaarc
rche
heerss ideent
n iffie
ied
a microorganism no
now
w kn
know
ow
o
wn ass
Mycobacterium
y
m vaccaee. Fo
Foun
unnd near
neear
a
the shores of Lake Kyoga
gaa in Ugan
Uganda
Ug
anda
da,, it
seemed to
o be plaayinng a ro
ole inn bo
boos
oos
osti
stiing
ng the
he
immune
ne system
ms of the locaal po
opula
pulaatition
pu
on.
on
Over
Ov
er the
h years,, re
r searchers haave
disco
di
overred that Mycoobacterium va
vacccaee
has a bona fide anti-inflamm
ha
matoryy efffe
f ct
ct,
and
d it boosts
ts le
leve
vels of thhe fe
feel-good
chemical
h
seroton
onin
i , red
duccing anxie
ietty and
d
im
mpr
prov
oving mo
m od. Th
T at discovery has
spar
arke
k d renewed in
interest in the idea that
humaan ex
exposure to microorganisms in the

natu
na
natu
t ral
raal en
enviiron
ronm
ro
nmennt su
supp
ppor
pp
orts
ts and protects
bo
oth
th ouurr phyysi
s cal
cal and
ca
annd ou
ourr ment
mennttall hea
me
e lth.
Gard
Ga
denninng wi
w thhou
outt g
gllov
o es inc
n reeas
nc
asees
es the
micr
mi
crob
bio
iota
t (mi
ta
micr
icr
c oo
oorg
rg
gan
a issms
m ) on
on our skin,
e po
ex
posi
s nng
si
g us to a div
iver
e sityy that’s muuchh more
er
natu
na
atu
turaal thhann thhee steerir le ennvironment
nts of the
mode
mo
deernn world
d.
Hate
Ha
te hardarrdd to
o-shhift
ft gririme
me whe
h n yo
ou
garden
d without gloves?? Mak
akee a qu
q ick sug
gar
scrub
sc
b by mixing one par
artt ol
oliv
ive or vegetab
ble
oil with two
oi
o parts sugar and a squirt of
liliqu
quid
id soap. And
d if yo
y u’ve gott any sttubb
bborn
dirt
di
rt lef
eftt under yo
your
ur nai
a ls, the
he be
best way to
get it out
ut is with thee poiintyy end
d of
o a cuticle
pusher tool (try the Cut
utic
icle
lee Pushe
herr To
ool
o kit,
£3.98, amazon.cco.u
.uk)
k).

As a mammal, our sense of smell is the only one
of our senses that is directly linked to the limbic
system, the part of our brain that processes
emotion and forms memories. So smells really
affect how we feel.
Part of this comes down to personal
preference – one person might love the
scent of hyacinths, another may find them
overpowering. But some scents are more
universal and have been shown to have a
definite physiological effect on us.
The scent of sweet basil has been found to
reduce stress. Smelling lavender helps to lower
blood pressure. Rosemary seems to boost our
mental sharpness. And the scent of pine trees
boosts our respiratory function, allowing us
to get more oxygen
into our systems –
helping us to feel
energised. So try
choosing your
next plant with
your nose
rather than
your eyes. Turn
to p40 for our
pick of scented
roses and, the next
time you’re at the
garden centre, let your
nose guide you around!

Ever smelled a
daffodil? They
have a heady floral
scent with vanilla
undertones
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 19

➣

#4 SHARE YOUR
GARDEN ON THE ’GRAM
Social media can support mental
health and wellbeing – that’s the
conclusion of an Italian study
that found that being part of an
online community can expand and
strengthen our sense of connection.
And feeling connected to other
people improves our wellbeing as,
when we share, our bodies release
the feel-good chemical oxytocin,

which promotes trust, bonding and
attachment. So make 2024 the year
you give your garden its own Insta
account. Share what you’re growing
(or trying to grow!), connect with
people who share your values and
interests, and let the oxytocin flow.
You’ll find us @moderngardens, and
editor Emma’s garden goings-on
@tidy_wild. See you there!

Give it
a go!

#5 GET TO KNOW YOUR NEIGHBOURS
Even minimal social interactions such as smiling at your
neighbours and saying hello can boost the way you feel,
decrease loneliness, and enhance a feeling of belonging,
which has all sorts of knock-on benefits in terms of mental
and physical health. One study, carried out by researchers
from the USA and Mexico, found that having friendly
relationships with neighbours was even more important
to wellbeing than support from friends and family. So next
time you spot a neighbour over the garden fence…
✽ Pay their plants a compliment. This is as simple as
bobbing up by the fence, saying hello and telling them
how good their crocuses or snowdrops look. It might lead
to a conversation or it might not, but it means next time
you see them, it’s easier to say hello.

20 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

✽ Ask for advice. When you ask someone for advice,
you’re implying that you think they’re smart, giving them
a confidence boost, which prompts them to think of you
in a good light. If they garden, ask about a plant that’s
growing in their garden; if not, anything related to your
shared boundary is a good place to start.
✽ Offer an unwanted plant. An exchange is an easy
way to move a relationship to the next level, and asking a
neighbour if they would like to rehome an unwanted plant
from your garden is an easy win, whether they accept the
plant or not.
✽ Suggest a cuppa. The next time you’re having a chat
over the fence, say, “I was just about to make myself a cup
of tea. Do you fancy one too?”

EASY IDEAS

#6 GROW
SOMETHING
FROM SEED
It’s frankly insane that a teeny-tiny seed
contains everything it needs to grow into a
beautiful plant bar soil, sun and water. And
watching the magic happen, and nuturing
this incredible feat of nature, has been
found to boost self-esteem, satisfaction,
and pride. All these little gems (right) are
super-easy to grow – order the packets
now and simply follow the instructions on
the packaging.

✽ Cosmos ‘Sonata Dwarf’
With oodles of blooms atop
wiry stems, these will only last
a summer but boy will they be
wonderful! Sow these outside in
March for late summer flowers.
£1.99/65 seeds suttons.co.uk
✽ Nigella ‘Delft Blue’ Sow this
little lovely from April wherever
you want it to flower, or you
can start them off indoors in
March. The seedpods are just
as gorgeous as the flowers.
£1.99/500 seeds
thompson-morgan.com
✽ Mexican fleabane These little
gems can’t wait to get growing!
Sow outside from April or now
on a sunny windowsill or in a
greenhouse, for a profusion of
blooms from April to November.
£3.79/100 seeds crocus.co.uk
✽ Sweet pea ‘April In Paris’
If the name hasn’t tempted you
already, then the strong scent of
these lilac-edged cream flowers
will. Sow in pots on a sunny
windowsill now. £2.50/10 seeds
englishsweetpeas.co.uk
✽ Nasturtium ‘Chameleon’ All
nasturtiums are super-easy to
grow from seed and this stunner
is no exception. It’s a tidy plant
and these edible orchid-like
flowers actually change colour!
Sow outside where you want
them to flower in March. £1/20
seeds thompson-morgan.com
✽ Coreopsis ‘Incredible Swirl’
Ooh will you just look at this
little stunner! Butterflies will love
these stylish blooms as much
as you do, and you can sow
the seeds outside from March.
£1.75/200 seeds
mr-fothergills.co.uk

of Exeter
ty
si
er
iv
n
U
e
th
m
o
fr
TIP Resea rchers
week
a
rs
u
o
h
o
tw
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le
t
a
end
found you need to sp
ng boost
ei
lb
el
w
a
et
g
to
t
en
m
in a green environ

✽ Sunflower ‘Sunshot Golds
Mixed’ Sunflowers are such
fun to grow from seed, and this
variety more than most with up
to 20 shaggy golden blooms on
each plant, lasting for weeks.
Sow in individual pots on a
sunny windowsill in March
or wait till April to
sow outside.
£1.43/10 seeds
thompson-morgan.com

FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 21

#7 FIND YOUR
COLOUR FIX
Colour psychologists spend their lives
studying the ways different colours impact
human behaviour. Shut your eyes and count to
10, then take a look at this page and see where
your gaze takes you on our flower-power
chart. Your brain already knows what colours
please it most, so perhaps you should listen up
and amend your planting palette in line…

PURPLE
Blue-ish shades of purple are said to
be calming, while deeper hues promote
a feeling of strength. Purple is also said
to spark creativity, and 25% of people
(surveyed across 30 different countries
by researchers from the University of
Lausanne) said they link the colour purple
with pleasure.

22 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

PINK
Peace, love and kindness: these feelings are all said
to be promoted by the colour pink. Backing that
up, a study from Chiba University
in Japan found that looking at
pink roses substantially reduced
people’s stress, and significantly
increased their feelings
of relaxation.

RED
This bold attention-grabbing tone is
associated with strength, passion and quick
reactions. This is a colour that activates our
nervous system and increases our heart
rate, boosting energy and circulation. You
may want that in your life, you may not!

EASY IDEAS

ORANGE

GREEN

Gentler than red but also associated
with energy, warmth and enthusiasm, its
brightness is said to promote feelings of
joy and a bubbly sense of being full of
life. Researchers have discovered that
seeing the colour orange increases
our appetite too.

Green is the easiest colour for our eyes to
look at and that’s reflected in the feelings it
usually evokes – calm, tranquillity, a sense
of hope and serenity. It’s also been found
to enhance creativity: when people look
at the colour green it seems to boost their
observation and communication skills.

YELLOW

BLUE

Another joyous, optimistic, energising
colour, the majority of people associate
yellow with happiness. But it’s also been
found that lots of yellow can make people
feel anxious or frustrated, or amplify
existing negative feelings, and intense
shades can cause eyestrain.

While blue is usually seen as calming and
soothing, the shade of blue you’re looking
at can have a big impact. Dark blues tend
to be linked to feelings of lethargy and
loneliness, while lighter blues are more
serene, helping to lower heart rate and
blood pressure and slow our breathing.

FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 23

#8 GET TO KNOW YOUR PLOT BETTER
Topophilia is a word invented by
poet WH Auden, and we rather like
it! It means the strength of feeling
we can have for a particular place,
and we’re seriously topophilic about
our gardens!
Researchers from the University of
Surrey have found that meaningful
locations awaken a powerful
response in us, making us feel calm,
and complete and safe. Those
connections are established over
time, but getting to know your

garden better speeds the process.
To grow stronger roots to your
plot, research its history. You can
zoom into your little patch of planet
at earth.google.com and watch a
timelapse of the past four decades.
Want to go back further and find out
what the land was used for before it
became a garden, and understand
how your plot fits into the wider
landscape? Get in touch with
your local branch of the Historical
Association (history.org.uk). You

Cashbah
Armchair, £99,
dobbies.com

24 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

can also buy historical maps from
1896-1904 at a useful one-inch-toone-mile scale, £8.99 each, at
shop.ordnancesurvey.co.uk.
And have a browse at
davidrumsey.com for a fantastic
array of old maps, which you can
search by village or town name, and
view plenty of detail online. Post
on your local Facebook community
page too, and you might discover all
sorts of interesting snippets about
your plot’s past.

EASY IDEAS
TRY THIS!

#9 COLLECT SOMETHING
It’s a natural human instinct to collect
things, and there are all sorts of
fabulous gardeny things to collect from
vintage watering cans to snowdrop
varieties, curious culinary herbs to old
terracotta pots, dinner-plate dahlias
to dragonfly decor! And not only
will indulging your passion fuel many
garden adventures, it’s also a great

way to meet and engage with
people who share your interests.
Levels of feel-good chemical
oxytocin rise when we’re in the
company of people who share our
passions, so be loud and proud about
whatever it is that you love and it could
lead you to a whole host of rewarding
friendships too.

#10 HARVEST
A HEAP OF
DOPAMINE
Dopamine is a chemical that’s released
by our brain when we do something that
we enjoy, and leaves us more alert, happy,
motivated, focused, even euphoric. It’s also
part of the ‘wanting’ process, propelling
us to do something to get the pleasure
reward. And this is why dopamine can be
addictive, and why it’s best to get your fix
from a healthy activity – such as gardening!
To get a decent dose of dopamine,
though, it’s vital that the end result is
satisfactory, because otherwise you get
caught in an endless reward-seeking loop.
Find yourself scrolling on social media for
far too long? That’s a great example of
getting caught in a reward-seeking loop,
where you’re not finding the reward you’re
after, so you continue to seek, with no
satisfying conclusion.
In the garden, there’s a surefire way to
get a splendidly satisfying reward, and
that’s to grow your own fruit and veggies.
Why do we get such a rush from picking
our carefully cultivated strawberries or
digging up potatoes? The theory is that
it links back to our hunter-gatherer days,
when accessing edibles was critical to
survival, so picking ripe fruit and veg would
have been a true moment of bliss.
You don’t need a separate veggie bed –
mix a few edibles into your beds, or plant
up a big pot – or wait for spring as there
are plenty of options you can start growing
now. All these are fine to grow in Feb as
long as you have a sheltered garden, just
cosy-up any baby plants with a cloche if
it’s still frosty (make your own from a big
plastic drinks bottle or upturned clear
plastic tub), or simply wait till the weather
warms up in March. And in a few weeks,
you can find out for yourself what this
dopamine super-fix feels like!

Grow
these
now!
✽ Carrot ‘Early Nantes’
This is one of the best for an early
sowing and the leaves are edible as well
as the root. Sow in a deep container
in a sunny spot and you’ll be pulling
carrots by June. £1.99/2,000
seeds crocus.co.uk
✽ Radish ‘Sparkler 3’
Colourful, crunchy and
compact, these peppery
balls are a cinch to grow in a
container. In colder weather
they’ll take 6-8 weeks to mature
but by summer, they’ll go from
seed to munching size in
4 weeks. £2.89/1,000 seeds
mr-fothergills.co.uk
✽ Plum ‘Victoria’
Delicious, and bees love the
blossom of this reliable
self-fertile little tree. It can
take 2-3 years before a
young tree fruits, but the
taste of that first sunripened plum is worth the
wait. £59.99/1.2m bareroot
rhsplants.co.uk
✽ Whitecurrants
Much sweeter than redcurrants
so you can eat them straight
from the bush. Grow tough
cookie ‘White Versailles’ up
against a black fence and
the berries will look like
glistening raindrops.
£9.99/3-5L pot
jacksonsnurseries.co.uk
✽ Garlic ‘Flavor’
Scrummy and wards off
vampires, this variety has
pretty pink cloves –
plant now and you
can harvest late July.
£7.99/2 bulbs
suttons.co.uk

FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 25

“It’s our little haven”
Mark and Debbie Remon’s concrete-covered plot in Bucks
has been reimagined into an ACCESSIBLE LIVING
space designed to relax and restore

Napoli Corner
Lounge Set, £499,
outandout.com

Add some
cheery brights
to your plot,
p62

GARDEN

makeover
26 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

GARDEN MAKEOVER

W

hen Mark and Debbie Remon
bought their traditional 1930s
semi-detached house in Woburn
Sands, Buckinghamshire, in
February 2019, their only outside space was an
expanse of reinforced concrete. “The previous
owner, a builder, used it for parking, and the
double garage at the bottom of the plot for
storage,” explains Debbie. “I wasn’t sure about
the house because the garden needed so much
work, but Mark persuaded me it would be the
first thing we did.”
And so while most newly-moved-in home
owners prioritise revamping the house, this
couple got straight on with their garden
upgrade, enlisting the creativity of Amber Hine
(hinegardendesign.com). “We found Amber
through another designer who thought that
Amber’s style would suit us better,” says Debbie.
“It was so clear that she understood what we
were aiming for. She really listened to our ideas
and asked loads of questions to get a feel for
us as people, making sure her design fitted our
lifestyle and budget. I’ve read a lot of gardening
magazines, including Modern Gardens, so we
had a good idea of what to expect.”

their dreams of a sensory haven filled with
wildlife-friendly plants and outdoor living
spaces for entertaining and relaxing – all a
world away from the leafless desert Amber
first viewed! “The whole site was covered in
reinforced concrete!” recalls Amber. There were
plenty of other challenges too. “The clients
needed vehicle access so a driveway had to be
incorporated into the space,” she continues.
“They were planning to turn the garage
into a garden room for entertaining so that
needed to have clear access too. There is an
air-conditioning unit for their bedroom that
required hiding, with space left to maintain
it. And some existing plants needed to be
incorporated into the design.
“And this was a small garden with big dreams!
The clients wanted something abundant and
full of wildlife, somewhere that reminded them
of their holidays in Spain, a garden they could
share and be excited about.”

SMART IDEAS
TO STEAL
SCREEN YOUR
DRIVEWAY with a raised bed.
REARRANGE PATIO
FURNITURE into a cosy
U shape.
PINCH SOME GARAGE
SPACE to use as a garden room.

BEFORE

CHALLENGING BRIEF
Debbie has Parkinson’s disease and this fully
influenced their garden design brief. “It is a
progressive illness with many symptoms so
we needed to think of the future, as this is our
forever home,” Debbie explains. “So no steps or
trip hazards, just flat surfaces and wide walkways
so I can get around easily if I do eventually need
a wheelchair or scooter.”
And while accessibility was key, the couple
were insistent that this wouldn’t compromise

AFTER
A blissful c
o
with oomdlebos of colours and tex
of ahhhh fa tures
ctor
! Great for parkeying
Concrete overload
on the e
the car but not so easy

Bring
more joy to
your garden this
afternoon! Turn
to p30

FEATURE: GAP PH OTOS/KIRSTY M CNEIL-O’CONNOR.
PHOTOS: GAP PH OTOS. G ARDEN DESIGN: AMBER HINE @HINEG ARDENDESIG N

A QUIET CORNER
for reading or just
listening to the bees and
rustle of the bamboo.

➣
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 27

PATTERN PERFECTION
with Black Kerplunk Screens,
£50 each, screenwithenvy.co.uk.

THE STAGGERED
paved path eases the
way through the plot.

BEFORE

It was time to get cracking
look for this dreary hardscon a new
aping!
PRACTICAL AND PRETTY

their
Debbie and Mark enjoary round
sensory haven all ye

OUR GARDEN
PL AN
LOCATION Woburn Sands, Bucks
THE LOOK Contemporary courtyard
SITE Size 10.7m x 8.5m
Faces South/south-east Soil Clay
OUR BUDGET
Amber’s design & planting plan £1,600
Site clearance & drainage £1,750
Paving £6,940 Screen panels £1,350
Raised beds & planting prep £3,600
Electrics & lights £1,720
Front garden £1,620 Driveway £5,780
Plants, materials & on-site visits £3,147
TOTAL: £27,507
HOW LONG IT TOOK
Clearance & groundwork 4 days
Paving, laying drive & gravel 2 weeks
Screening & raised beds 10 days
Electrics & lighting 4 days
Planting 2 days
TOTAL: 30 days

28 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

Amber’s design centred on creating an outdoor
living space that would enhance the couple’s
day-to-day life, with raised beds a key factor.
“These mean I won’t have to bend down and
I can still garden if I need a wheelchair,” says
Debbie. Practicality aside, they also created a
strong structure. “The different heights of the
raised beds and planting create interest and
drama in this small space while also providing
leaning posts as one moves around it,” Amber
adds. “These beds also help to create the sense
of defined yet open spaces.”
Although the couple had originally
requested a lawn, Amber advised against it.
“A lawn is high maintenance and removing
all that concrete would’ve been a huge
undertaking!” she says.
Debbie and Mark were both delighted
with the design. “After seeing Amber’s plans
we didn’t want to change a thing!” smiles
Debbie. Over the course of an exciting month,
the garden build brought the plan and the plot
to life, ably constructed by HG Landscapes
(hglandscapes.co.uk). Safe to say, the need for
accessibility in no way compromises the stylish
plant-filled garden for all-seasons Debbie and
Mark now enjoy. Three outdoor living areas
are linked together with smooth-but-notslippery planked paving, drawing you through
the garden with plenty of pitstops along the
way. “This garden has now become a series of
connected rooms, all with their own identity,”
says Amber. “Natural materials bring the garden
far from its concrete roots to a space that feels
healing, meditative and grounded.”

TEXTURED LAYERS
The raised beds are filled with carefully chosen
plants, with Debbie’s favourite colour, purple,
determining the palette. “I’ve lost my sense of
smell, which is common in Parkinson’s,” says
Debbie. “So, as well as plants to attract wildlife,
Amber suggested we put in different textures
rather than focus on scent.” Low-maintenance
was also key. “I’d say we are enthusiastic rather
than knowledgeable gardeners,” laughs Debbie.
“We wanted privacy so Amber suggested
bamboo planted in a root barrier, and it makes
a lovely sound when we’re sitting outside in the

Dorian Limestone
Paving, £56.26/m2
lsd.co.uk

THE RAISED BEDS
are full of character!

evening,” she
adds. Many of the
couple’s much-loved
collection of plants in pots found a new home
in the ground. “We are very excited about the
wisteria,” shares Debbie. “It was pot-bound
so Amber suggested it was planted in the
ground. Last year was the first year we had an
abundance of flowers on it, covering the whole
front of the garden room! The view from our
window is so important, especially to us, and is
now a joy year-round.”
With plants in place, it didn’t take long for
wildlife to return to this once-barren plot.
“We now have bees, birds and butterflies in
abundance,” adds Debbie. “We’ve also had
wood pigeons nesting in the wisteria and even
a visit from the occasional hedgehog.”

A SPACE TO ENJOY
All concerned are delighted with the result. “It’s
a garden I’m really proud of,” says Amber. “For
a compact space, it delivers so highly and I think
a lot of that comes from the trust that Mark
and Debbie placed in me and the fullness with
which they embraced my design.”
But the biggest test of success is the
difference this garden upgrade has made to
Debbie and Mark’s lives. “The garden feels so

GARDEN MAKEOVER
THE WISTERIA
is thriving now it’s
planted in the ground.

Fargesia robusta
‘Campbell’

A DIY HIGHLIGHT,
the garden room is full
of home comforts.
A SUNNY SPOT
for afternoon tea
is the icing on the
(lemon drizzle) cake!

much larger, we value it now more than we ever
thought we could, and we love sharing it with
friends and family,” smiles Debbie. “We spend as
much time out here as possible, all year. Amber
designed the lighting we had installed so we can
enjoy it in the evening sitting outside or looking
out from the kitchen on a dark winter evening –
it brings the outside in.”
Aside from adding lots of little accessories
– “I really must stop buying them!” laughs
Debbie – the only change the couple have
made is to turn half of the garage into a
stunning garden room. Mark built internal walls
from disassembled pallets, and preloved bifold
doors were sourced on eBay. The seating and
coffee table are cleverly made from pallets
too. “Everything in here is secondhand or

PLANT
HEAVEN

A SURE SIGN
Debbie now has
her dream garden.
homemade,” says
Debbie proudly. And
of course this lovely
living space is designed
to be futureproof too, so it can continue to
be enjoyed for years to come as Debbie’s
Parkinson’s progresses. “Watching the garden
maturing, we are more in love with it than
ever,” Debbie adds. “Being in the garden is
so calming, we spend as much time in it as
possible. It’s like being on holiday! It was worth
every penny and it’s our perfect little haven.”

SCREENS HIDE
the driveway without
limiting access.

PURPLE PATCH This tranquil tone has been matched with splashes of red for a restful yet refreshing effect.

Heuchera ‘Obsidian’

Campanula portenschlagiana Fuchsia ‘Brutus’

Centaurea montana

Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’

FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 29

BOX OF DAISY DELIGHTS

GR W SOME
Spend a sunny afternoon planting the
FEEL-GOOD FACTOR in
your outside space

6 EASY

FEATU RE: GEOFF H ODGE. P HOTOS: SHU TTERSTOCK, GARDENIMAGE.COM,
GAP PHOTOS/THE COU NTRY GARDEN FLOWER COMPANY/JACQUI DRACUP

PROJECTS
TO DO
NOW!

You can always rely on tough bellis
daisies (Bellis perennis) for an uplifting
splash of colour in late winter and
spring. Plant them in any container,
drilling drainage holes if needed. An
old wine box is perfect, and cheap –
TheWineBoxMerchant @etsy.com sells
sturdy boxes for £5.
Pack in the plants as they won’t grow
any bigger until the weather warms up,
adding compost underneath and inbetween the rootballs. Water well and
again whenever the compost dries out.
For lots more blooms, feed once
a week from March onwards with a
high-potash liquid feed.

WHAT IT COST

✽ Compost: New Horizon All Plant Peat
Free Compost, £8/50L diy.com
✽ Bellis daisy plants,£8/12
homebase.co.uk
✽ High-potash liquid feed: Levington
Tomorite Liquid Plant Feed,
£5.95/1L diy.com
TOTAL: £21.95

SIMPLE SCENT BOWL
Oh snowdrops, how you gladden our hearts
with your nodding heads! But did you know that
some types boast a divinely sweet honey scent?
It’s a delicate fragrance, so dig up a clump
from your garden to pot up and bring inside to
amplify and appreciate it.
Get down to flower level in your beds and
sniff out your snowdrops to see if they’re
scented. Some of the best for fragrance are
Galanthus elwesii (which we’ve used) varieties
‘Atkinsii’, ‘S Arnott’ and ‘Magnet’.
You can use any container and if it doesn’t
have drainage holes, simply pot your plants up
using bulb fibre – if it does, use any ordinary
30 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

potting compost. Give your lawn a quick rake
and you’ll likely gather some moss to add a
pretty layer over the top as a finishing touch.
Keep the compost/bulb fibre moist and, once
the flowers have faded, plant the clump back
out in the garden.
WHAT IT COST

✽ Bulb fibre: Miracle-Gro Premium,
£8.19/10L amazon.co.uk
TOTAL: £8.19

Garden
joy

SPECIAL

SIMPLE PROJECTS

This variety was introduced by
a cut-flower specialist so it’s
bred to last for ages in a vase
TACTILE TOUCH-ME CATKINS
Want to fondle these fuzzy buds? We can
confirm it’s a truly lovely experience! The
flowers of pussy willow, Salix gracilistyla ‘Mount
Aso’, open on bare stems in late winter and early
spring so the soft and silky pink catkins stand
up proudly with a silvery sheen, and it’s almost
impossible not to give them a gentle stroke
every time you pass by. And once flowering
is over, the bluish leaves are silvery on the
underside, forming a handsome backdrop to
summer blooms.
It grows in a bushy shape to around 3m high,
but can be kept smaller if you grow it in a large
pot and prune it after the flowers fade in spring
every other year. Use John Innes No.3 Compost
and give it a spot in full sun or partial shade.
Water in well and keep well-watered as and
when needed to keep the compost moist.
WHAT IT COST

✽ 40cm container: Blooma Momoka Taupe

as well
e
d
a
h
s
in
y
p
p
a
h
ies are
TIP Bellis dais
omy corner
lo
g
a
r
e
e
h
c
to
m
as sun so use the

Stone Effect Plastic Circular Plant Pot,
£24 diy.com
✽ John Innes No.3 Compost, £7.99/28L
marshallsgarden.com
✽ Salix gracilistyla ‘Mount Aso’,
£25/2-3L pot burncoose.co.uk
TOTAL: £56.99

➣
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 31

‘Tête-à-tête’

DELIGHTFUL
DAFFODIL KOKEDAMA
Kokedama is the Japanese
technique of wrapping the roots
of bulbs and other small plants in
moss, and it tarts up a pot of dwarf
daffs a treat! Lay the moss out on
a flat surface, so there are no gaps.
Ease the daffs from their plastic pot
and lay on top. Now wrap the moss
around the rootball, keeping the
compost as intact as possible.
Next, bind all around the mossy
ball using wire – don’t worry about
the wire showing, you can pluck
strands of moss partially out of the
ball to disguise it. To water, immerse
the moss ball in a bucket of water
for 10 mins, then allow it to drain.
It’s important to keep the compost
moist so, if it doesn’t rain, resoak
the ball when needed. Once the
flowers have faded, plant the bulbs
into a bed.

WHAT IT COST

✽ Sphagnum moss: Smart Garden
Bagged Moss, £9.20/2kg diy.com
✽ Potted daffodils: Narcissus
‘Tête-à-tête’, £6.50/1L
garthwaitenurseries.com
✽ Florist reel wire, £5.50/50m
sarahraven.com
TOTAL: £21.20

32 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

okeda ma
k
r
u
o
y
ff
o
h
is
in
TIP F
of twine
with a rustic tie

SIMPLE PROJECTS

TUB OF TASTY
SUMMER BERRIES
Got an old container
hanging around behind the
shed? Fill it with a blueberry
bush underplanted with
strawberries for a bumper crop
come summer, so you can look
forward to happy patio-snacking
and popping berries straight into
your G&T. It’s a pretty combo too,
as both plants boast white flowers
in spring and the blueberry has fab
autumn leaf colour.
Any container works, just as long as it has
drainage holes (drill some if it doesn’t). Choose
a blueberry variety that crops prolifically even if
not grown with another variety for pollination –
‘Bluecrop’ is our pick. There are no such worries
for strawberries but if you choose a mix of
varieties that fruit at different times, you’ll enjoy
a long and luscious picking season. Blueberries
hate lime so use ericaceous compost, which is
fine for the strawbs, and water with rainwater if
your tap water is hard.
Plant the blueberry first, in the centre or
towards the back, depending on where you’ll
place the container, then fill around the edges
with the strawberries – around six strawb plants
for a 50-60cm wide container is about right.
Stand in a sunny spot, water well and keep the
compost moist, especially during flowering
and fruiting, and use a high-potash liquid feed
through late spring and summer.

FOREVER FLOWERING
SAXIFRAGE

TRY THIS!

Paint plant pots a spring hue
- Rust-Oleum Garden Paint
(99p/10ml, rustoleumcolours.co.uk)
sticks to most surfaces

WHAT IT COST

✽ Blueberry ‘Bluecrop’, £21.99/2L pot
thompson-morgan.com

✽ Strawberry plants: Long Cropping

Collection, £15.99/15 bareroots
marshallsgarden.com
✽ Ericaceous compost: John Innes,
£14.95/30L diy.com
✽ High-potash liquid feed: Levington
Tomorite, £5.95/1L diy.com
TOTAL: £58.88

‘Alpino Early Picotee’

Low-growing saxifrage may be tiny
but choose the right variety and it’ll
flower for months from mid-spring to
mid-summer. ‘Alpino Early Picotee’ is
our pick, growing in a pretty mound
15cm high and 30cm wide, smothered in
bijou blooms. You only need one plant for a
20-23cm pot, and the evergreen foliage will
trail over the rim. Water well after planting
and keep the compost moist, especially
from late spring to the end of summer,
and boost with a high-potash liquid feed
through late spring and summer to keep
the flowers coming.
WHAT IT COST

✽ Saxifraga ‘Alpino Early Picotee’,
£7.99/9cm pot crocus.co.uk

✽ 23cm terracotta pot: Laleh,
£4.20 diy.com

✽ Multipurpose compost with added

John Innes: Westland, £8/50L
wickes.co.uk
✽ High-potash liquid feed: Levington
Tomorite, £5.95/1L diy.com
TOTAL: £26.14

FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 33

SATISFY COSY CRAVINGS
With all the enchantment of a crackling flame
from the comfort of your patio table, this vegan
soy wax Crakl Bonfire will have you feeling cosier
and your troubles melting away in no time. Burn
time up to four hours, £19.99 crakl.co.uk

1
LOVE LETTERS
From nature with love, this Natural Branch
‘LOVE’ Decoration is a joyous bundle of
twigs and grasses, H60cm x L45cm, with
rope for hanging. £19.99 partypieces.co.uk

We
LOVE
these!

TAKE A BREATHER
Gently roll onto pulse points
at the temples, neck and
wrists and inhale the naturally
relaxing aroma. Lavender
Calm Roller Blend 10ml, £8
shop.nationaltrust.org.uk

5

HAVE A HEART
These uplifting salt-dough heart-shaped ornaments
are handpainted, decoupaged and varnished. Each
one is unique and features a garden/festive/love
themed image. Designs are selected at random
when you order so it’s a sweet surprise as to which
one you’re going to get. Garden Heart Ornaments,
5.5cm, £6 each thehareandthemoon.co.uk

7

COMPILED BY ANGELA KENNY

#10
BEST

SAY IT OUT
LOUD
Make it your
morning mantra and
start the day on a
high note! Made from
strong and durable
iron, this Indoor
Outdoor Good Day
Wall Art has D-ring
hooks attached to the
back for easy wall or
fence hanging. H50cm
x W35cm, £12
dunelm.com

SOAK UP SOOTHING SOUNDS
Tune into the gentle trickle of this
hardwearing polyresin Howard Solar
Water Feature by Bermuda with 5m
cable, and let it calm your body and
mind. H50cm, £269.99 primrose.co.uk

8

LAYER UP THE
LOVELINESS
WELCOME WELLBEING
It’s a fast fix to
into your outside space with these easy-add finds
34 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

LIGHT UP YOUR DAY
Create a spring alfresco table setting you
can’t help but smile at with a Set of 6 Fluted
Blush Pink TruGlow Taper Candles with
Remote Control, £39.99/6 lights4fun.co.uk

6

BOOST BORDER BLISS
All you need to fill a border with sensory
planting in calming mauves and creams.
Garden Border Design Kit Wellbeing Version,
£24.99 borderinabox.com

4

3

PHOTO : O L I VE R PE R ROT T

2

9

Shop the easy
way! Scan here
to shop all these
lovely buys

LEAF IT OUT!
Quiet, beauty and space, tick, tick, tick! Now
sit back and enjoy what you’ve created with
this finishing touch Hanging Metal Maple Leaf,
Octavia Hill, W18cm, £13 shop.nationaltrust.org.uk
FORGET YOUR TROUBLES...
come on, get arty!
Pick up a paintbrush
with the Winter
Gardening and Art
Wellbeing Kit, £44.99
popgardens.co.uk

10

OUTDOOR LIVING

T

here’s lots to
love about
February,
though I do
have to remind myself
often. The winter
months and dark
nights can be a drag,
with waterlogged
soil or frozen ground
halting precious
time in the garden.
But nature never
stands still, and there are tiny signs of growth
everywhere if I look closely.
Where I’ve planted bulbs, stiff green shoots
are nosing through the soil. I step outside
first thing, dressing gown on, hands wrapped
around a steaming cuppa, to monitor their
progress. Early crocuses may have already
opened their blue and gold flowers in pots
on the table outside my kitchen window, and
the daffs should be offering an uplifting blast

important to choose a mild day with no frost
or snow. Pruning can be daunting but armed
with a pair of sharp secateurs, I simply remove
any obviously dead or too-dry branches, or
anything growing across paths and doorways. If
there are buds on the shrubs or small trees that
I’m tidying up, I look for an outward facing one,
and cut just above it. I have to remind myself
not to be too gung-ho, because I can get
carried away, and hacking too much back could
prevent some of my shrubs flowering this year.
But a bit of gentle snipping won’t hurt and if
I’m in any doubt, I just leave well alone.
My lovely ornamental grasses are looking
brown and faded in their pots, and here I won’t
hold back with the snippers. At the end of the
month, they will be cut right down, avoiding
their new little shoots which will already be
forming a wispy fringe at the base of the plants.
If the weather does its worst and keeps
me indoors, I can still get a gardening fix by
planting some sweet pea seeds. Sow them
on Valentine’s Day and they should flower

Coming soon!
Make
life
lovely

Hope is blooming

PH OTOS: FIONA CUMBERPATCH, ANNABEL JAMES

“ Nature never stands still, and there are
tiny signs of growth if I look closely”
of buttery-yellow by the front door (if they’re
a no-show, I’ll cheat and buy a few pots from
the market!). It’s about the only time of year
that I love yellow flowers, but when I see the
tiny citrus-coloured aconites popping up in
my local park, and the lemon-curd petals of
narcissi unfurling, I can’t get enough of it.
That’s why I like to plan a visit to an open
garden about now. It’s worth checking the
National Garden Scheme (ngs.org.uk) to
see what’s on locally. Viewing early bulbs and
carpets of white snowdrops mingling with
blush-pink hellebores is just what I need to get
those gardening juices flowing.
Full of new-found enthusiasm, I’ll tackle
some pruning. It’s the right time to do it,
before the birds start nesting, although it’s

by June 14. Pop in a couple of seeds per pot,
or use a toilet-roll tube as a planter, and let
them germinate on a window ledge, away
from radiators, or pop them in a greenhouse.
When two sets of leaves have grown, and the
plant sprouts more, gently nip off the top of
the seedling with your fingertips, so it grows
stronger and more bushy. They will be ready
to plant out in late May, when the frosts have
passed and the days are bright and long again.
Hold that thought!

Fiona

Instagram @fionacumberpatch
blog fionacumberpatch.com

Garden ready!

as
Last summer’s sweet pe
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 35

PH OT O: AN
NA BE L JA ME
S

Buoyed by bright bulbs pushing through the soil,
FIONA CUMBERPATCH is back out in her small
town garden in Lincolnshire for some essential tasks

“It’s a reflection of
everything I love”
Jane Hobbs’ swish new outside space in north London
showcases her passion for ALL THINGS ITALIAN

W

hen Jane Hobbs bought her
1930s house back in December
2019, the sloping garden was a
humdrum space not dissimilar
to any of her new neighbours’ plots. “It was
mainly laid to lawn with some old apple
trees and small borders, with fig trees and a
wonderful mature wisteria,” remembers Jane.
But this conventional outdoor scene was
far too mundane for Jane, a keen gardener
who appreciates nature, wildlife – and Italian

garden style. She wasted no time in engaging
garden designer Matthew Haddon
(haddon.studio) to switch up the dull vista
into a far more characterful space with striking
Mediterranean vibes.
Having worked with Matthew on a previous
garden in Yorkshire, Jane knew she was in
safe hands. “Matthew has a good process
that explores what it is you really want from a
garden,” she says. And what exactly did Jane
have her heart set on? Matthew reveals, “Jane

wanted a lushly planted garden that worked as
an extension of the house and blended with
its contemporary finish. It also had to have
a romanticism to it, and a feeling of Italian
formality too, creating that tension between
the planting and hard landscaping.” The
dream was a far cry from the dated garden
Jane had inherited, with its crazy paving and
dilapidated raised terrace.
“The garden was basically a blank canvas
with some great fig trees!” laughs Matthew.

Add a
soothing leafy
sphere to your
plot, p102

WORDS: MELANIE WHITEHOUSE. PH OTOS:
CHRIS SNOOK PHOTOG RAPH Y, HADDON STUDIO

Steel Dark Luxury DesignClad
tiles, £198 each,
londonstone.co.uk

36 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

GARDEN MAKEOVER
AFTER

SMART IDEAS
TO STEAL

BEFORE

MAKE A MOOD BOARD
to explore how you can bring
more of whatever you love
to your plot.
LET PLANTING SPILL
over paths and patios for a
full-of-life feel.

Tired and datedtential
but bursting with po

A serene sa
city surrnocutunary within
dings

ADD CHAMOMILE
around pavers for a fresh apple
scent when crushed underfoot.

Boscombe Table,
from £335, Chairs,
£195 each, neptune.com

GARDEN

makeover
➣

Bois de Bourgogne paving,
POA, arcturusstones.com

Planter, POA,
urbisdesign.co.uk

Got a
sloping plot
too? Turn to
p42

FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 37

A POOL-SIDE PEW
surrounded by wafty
sweet-smelling plants...
just heavenly!

and Billy are
That’s amore! Jathne the
ir new space
head over heels wi

MY GARDEN
PL AN

LOCATION Winchmore Hill, London
THE LOOK Mediterranean
SITE Size 17m x 12m Faces North-east
Soil Clay improved with loam
MY BUDGET
Excavation & paving £4,000
Fencing £5,000 Cladding £2,000
Limestone pavers £17,390 Drainage &
steps £3,000 Raised bed £3,000
Lighting £1,000 Planting £10,000
Ground prep & irrigation £8,000
TOTAL: £53,390
HOW LONG IT TOOK
Ground prep & excavation 3 days
Drainage 5 days Fencing 15 days
Irrigation & pipework 3 days
Paving & tiling 15 days
Building raised bed & bench 5 days
Installing lighting 3 days Planting 5 days
TOTAL: 54 days

HOW WE DID IT...

INSIDE OUTSIDE
As Jane was having work done to the house
too, Matthew looked to the architect’s drawings
as the starting point for his design. “I wanted the
garden to flow out from the house,” he says, “an
Italian formal garden but with the romanticism
of gardens like Ninfa in central Italy, but
reinterpreted into a contemporary style suitable
for the UK.” It was a high ideal: the Garden of
Ninfa is often described as the most romantic
garden in the world, with medieval ruins, exotic
blooms and highly scented roses.
The finished design is a masterclass in
merging old and new, taking the classic
formality of century-old garden style and
bringing it bang up-to-date with contemporary
materials and exuberant planting. “Using a
geometric layout, we ensured paths and steps
allowed for easy circulation through the space,
with offset stepping stones between the upper
and lower terraces so that planting could be
used much more than a solid mass of paving
would allow,” explains Matthew.
French limestone, used on interior floors,
continues through to the garden in a slightly
darker tone. Close to the house, a dining
area shares a high terrace with a lounger and
oversized pots before steps, aligned with the
house doors, lead down into the rest of the
garden. Here a pool with a gently cascading

THE SUNKEN
terrace is a real
treat with squishy
outdoor sofa and
flowers abuzz with
pollen lovers.

waterfall blade adds a tranquil soundscape, the
walls clad in contrasting dark tiles. Oversized
pots in a limestone finish planted with a
timeworn olive tree and tumbling rosemary,
oregano and sage complement the paving and
continue the Italian theme.
A sunken seating area with oh-so-comfy sofa
catches the last of the day’s sun, surrounded by
lush planting. “My planting style is to maximise
biodiversity through layering plants and
covering the soil so there’s no space for weeds,”
explains Matthew. “This embraces an element of
the natural disorder of plants ‘doing their thing’
within a clear structural framework, showing this
is intentional as opposed to having been left to
go wild. To achieve this, I built up the layers of
planting in order,” he continues. “Key structural
plants first, then plants for seasonal colour, then

2
3
1
WITH THE SLOPING PLOT reshaped into
level tiers and drainage sorted, the limestone
steps are laid and water feature installed.

38 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

TONS OF TOPSOIL are tipped onto the
street to be barrowed into the garden to
improve the claggy London clay. Phew!

THE PLANTS ARRIVE in fine fettle. At
least with house renovations in full flow, access
to the garden is no-doors straightforward!

GARDEN MAKEOVER

Cypress tree

Choose
a scented
rose for your
space, p40

BELLISSIMO!
Clouds of white
blooms look fab
against the dark
fence and foliage.
WATER FEATURE
acoustics are music
to Jane’s ears.

Geranium
‘Rozanne’

groundcover, especially below trees and shrubs,
and finally infill planting.”
The result is flowerbeds that seem to burst
with ebullient life in line with Jane’s colour
preferences of soft purples and whites, the
perfect contrast to the more formal hard
landscaping. And it’s practical too. “The planting
needed to stand up to being left untended
occasionally, so it couldn’t be too neat and tidy,”
Matthew adds.
And while the vibe is most definitely wild,
the riot of blooms is carefully punctuated with
formal spheres of pittosporum and ilex.

LA DOLCE VITA
Thank goodness the finished garden is
so gorgeous, as the build was far from
straightforward, with lockdown meaning work

couldn’t begin until
January 2022. And
there were plenty
of other challenges,
not least dealing with
tricky drainage in this
sloping plot and saving
“It’s wonderful to sit here
the mature wisteria while
surrounded by plants and flowers
replacing the fencing and
and the buzzing bees,” she continues.
carport that supported it.
“At
night the fig trees, olive tree and the
TUMBLING BLOOMS
“I wasn’t living in the
Italian
cypress are all lit up, providing a
soften the hardscaping.
property while the work was
beautiful vista from inside and out. I’ve
going on,” says Jane, “so
also got lights on the paved areas where
it was all about the joy of seeing how it was
we sit, and have used solar alliums for a bit of
progressing with each site visit. When it was
magic throughout the planting. The sound
finished in late September 2022, and I finally
of the water feature and the reflections, the
moved into the house with my terrier cross Billy
relaxed sitting area, the raised beds… they’re all
I absolutely loved my new garden.
exactly as I wanted them to be.”

5

6

4
FIVE DAYS OF PLANTING LATER and
the gaps between the pavers are filled with
chamomile, and those cypress trees look fab!

PLANTING FINISHED, the stone paving
gets a good wash and the hose goes into the
water feature to fill. Nearly there!

ONE LAST JOB TO DO, fill the limestonelook pots. The biggest one will be home to this
focal-point cloud-pruned olive tree.

FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 39

STOP AND SMELL THE
Now’s the perfect time to plant a rose – choose
one with a SCENT YOU ADORE

CLOVES

FEATU RE: JU LES BARTON-BRECK. P HOTOS: SHU TTERSTOCK, ALAM Y, GAP PHOTOS/H OWARD RICE

Meet ‘Roseraie de l’Hay’, a fantastic
shrub rose that boasts vibrant bright
green leaves, a spicy scent and gorgeous
double magenta blooms that will grace
your garden all summer long. It’s happy
in a container or a flowerbed, and as
autumn arrives it treats you to huge
scarlet hips that birds and small mammals
adore. Height & Spread 90-120cm.
£14.75/1 bareroot eastcroftroses.co.uk

HONEY

WHAT’S YOUR FAVE FRAGRANCE?
We get drawn in by the luscious tones and lowmaintenance charm of roses, but let’s not overlook the
magic of their scent when they bloom. There are five
main scent groups, each offering a variety of delightful
options. Old Rose is the classic heady scent. Tea smells
like fresh tea leaves. Myrrh is reminiscent of sweet
anise as its name comes from the Latin for the herb
sweet cicely, Myrrhis odorata. The Fruity group has
everything from apricot to blackcurrant. And Musk is
often described as the natural smell of your skin, but
better! This scent actually emanates from the stems
rather than the flowers and includes spices like nutmeg
along with earthy tobacco.

ANISEED
With a sweet aroma rather like
liquorice, ‘Queen of Sweden’ is
part of the myrrh scent family.
It’s a bushy upright shrub with
exquisite upward-facing blooms
that start off apricot-pink and
change to soft pink over time.
The long-stemmed flowers are
superb for cutting, too. Height
1.25m Spread 90cm. £22.50/
bareroot davidaustinroses.co.uk

Fresh apple
Grow the pretty pink rambler sweet briar rose up a
trellis or over an arch or pergola and enjoy its apple-like
fragrance, which becomes even stronger after rain. It’s
tolerant of poor soil and a bit of shade, but prefers full
sun where it’ll produce bigger better blooms. Height
& Spread 1m, £7.50/2L pot, naturescape.co.uk.

40 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

The gorgeous perfume of ‘Sweet
Honey’ is most potent on warm sunny
days. It’s an award-winning variety,
not just for its scent but the incredible
blooms in apricot shades that last from
June to October. Plant it in a large
container on the patio and breathe in
its beauty! Height 90cm Spread 75cm.
£9.99/2-year-old bush jparkers.co.uk

Old rose
Want to please passers-by with a
cloud of quintessential rose fragrance?
Plant ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ in your front
garden, a medium shrub English rose
with large rosette-shaped blooms in a
bright Barbiecore pink. Height 1.10m
Spread 90cm. £22.50/bareroot,
davidaustinroses.co.uk.

EASY IDEAS

ELDERFLOWER
Red buds of ‘Boscobel’
open to enormous
coral-pink rosettes.
Alongside its main
elderflower scent are
delicious hints of pear
and almond – scrummy!
Height & Spread 1.10m.
£22.50/bareroot
davidaustinroses.co.uk

TEA
,
‘Molineux’, £27/6L pot
.uk
shop.barnsdalegardens.co

APRICOT
With blousy double blooms in
shades of soft apricot to pink, climber
‘Compassion’ smells just like it looks!
The stems have large red thorns which
look stunning against a dark wall or
fence, and the fragrance more than
makes up for any scratches! Height
& Spread 2m. £14.99/3-4L pot
jacksonsnurseries.co.uk

FRUIT SALA
‘All American Magic’, £1 D
6.95/b
thefragrantrosecompany. areroot,
co.uk

ALMOND
Oh ‘Desdemona’, how we love you!
With swoonworthy white blooms
tinged with blush pink, this shrub rose
is neat enough to grow in a border. It
repeat flowers throughout summer and
autumn. The blooms smell of almond
with a refreshing hint of cucumber and
lemon zest. Height & Spread 1.10cm.
£32.99/6L pot cowellsgc.co.uk

VANILL A
areroot,
‘Claire Austin’, £20.95/b
styleroses.co.uk

Spice
ot?
Ordered a bargain arbarireverobu
This is how it’ll g to life!t
it will soon sprin

Discover the allure of ‘Deep Secret’, which
has velvety dark red blooms that turn almost
black when fully open, and its spicy scent that
lingers in the air is truly captivating. Height &
Spread 1m. £9.99/bareroot, leafytiger.co.uk.

CITRUS
‘Kiss Me Kate’, £22.25/b
areroot,
classicroses.co.uk

FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 41

PHOTO : YO R K S HI R E GA R D E NS

Cut down on costs
by infilling gabion
centres with hardcore

USE GABIONS TO RESHAPE A SLOPE
Gabions, originally used to shore up road and railway cuttings, are so
useful for steeply sloping gardens as they let rainwater drain freely
through while supporting the soil behind. Quick to install and adaptable
too, these wire cages can be filled with your choice of stone, bricks or
cobbles and used as a single tier or stacked to reinforce a bank or terrace.
Here Yorkshire Gardens (yorkshiregardens.co.uk) has filled steel gabions
with local sandstone for an organic look. Paired with oak steps, each
cage includes a planting bag so plants can creep over and green up the
retaining walls. Smaller versions double as bench supports.
Choose from cubes and rectangular designs in 3mm, 4mm or 5mm
diameter wire, in a variety of sizes, at gabionbaskets.co.uk.

Consider the vertical plane
of your plot and add
a highlight, like this
stacked-stone water wall
CREATE LEVEL TERRACES
EACH WITH A DISTINCT FUNCTION
In a steep sloping garden, a series of levels is often the best solution. In
this city-smart design by Fossey Arora (fosseyarora.com), constructed by
The Garden Builders (gardenbuilders.co.uk), three hard-working levels are
cleverly linked by chunky timber steps. While the ground level creates a
cosy social space complete with barbecue, outdoor fireplace and generous
corner sofa, the middle section has a jacuzzi and water feature, while a
small garden studio occupies one corner of the uppermost terrace.
Sleek steel bannisters and tension wire railings ensure safety but don’t
obstruct views. Wire Balustrades, from £95/m, wpshandrails.com.
42 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

GARDEN VERTICALLY
TO CREATE A LEAFY
OUTLOOK
Many sloping plots have been
given the standard treatment of a
patio outside the house, backed by
a retaining wall and the rest of the
garden. While effective, it often
disconnects the house from the
garden. Sound familiar? It’s simple to
solve. Simply add layers of planting.
In this project designed by Karen
Rogers (krgardendesign.com) a
raised bed packed with lush foliage
lifts the gaze to a vertical tapestry
of climbers and umbrella trees.
Aim for predominately
evergreen plants such as hardy
ferns for all-year greens, then add
airy perennials such as Verbena
bonariensis for splashes of vivid
colour. You’ll find a great range of
hardy ferns at bowdenhostas.com.

EASY IDEAS

Hornbeam

Japanese maple

WITH A

Upgrade that TRICKY INCLINE into usable space

L

ots of us have sloping plots, and the easiest
solution is simply to leave it as a lawn.
But there are all sorts of clever ways to
make better use of that space, whether
it’s a gradual rise or a steep change in level. It’s
a common problem for all garden designers

so there are numerous stylish solutions, from a
simple curving path among meadow planting
to a series of crisp steps and terraces. Here we
share the smartest ways to make the most of your
slope, whether you’re after a quick trick you can
do yourself or inspiration for a complete redesign.

FEATU RE: JILL MORGAN. PHOTO: GAP P HOTOS/CAROLINE MARDON. GARDEN DESIGN: KAREN ROGERS

COPE

Smart
design
solutions

➣
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 43

CAST SHADOWS TO DISGUISE HARSH WALLS

TURN STEPS INTO A FOCAL-POINT FEATURE
Making steps a striking feature in their own right not only integrates them
into the rest of the garden, it turns the slope into a design feature. In this
design by Sarah Oxby (hampsteadgardendesign.com), the steps stretch
across the width of the garden and encompass hardwood decking as
well as pale grey porcelain pavers, with some of the steps extended into
seating terraces. By keeping the step height uniform throughout, the
effect is effortlessly stylish.
Porcelain outdoor tiles are a cinch to work with and available in
realistic wooden finishes, making it easy to create the effect of
mixed-material steps. Lake Wood Porcelain Planks, from £29.29/m2,
naturalpavingstore.co.uk.

PHOTO: BUILT BY LANDFORM CONS ULTANTS. D E S I GNE D BY J O HN DAVI E S

PHOTO : GA P PHOTOS / NI CO L A S TO C K E N

Retaining walls are a neat and effective way to tame and tailor an
unruly slope, but they’re a dominant feature so it’s important to
soften their effect. In this swish space designed by John Davies
(johndavieslandscape.co.uk) and built by Landform Consultants
(landformconsultants.co.uk), the clad vertical surface has been
celebrated with carefully positioned plants and lighting to use the
flat backdrop as a projection screen for showstopper shadows.
Solar spike spotlights are a quick win, just make sure they
give enough light to cast strong shadows. The Apollo
DualWhite Solar Spotlights (£49.99/2, thesolarcentre.co.uk) light
a distance of up to 25m.

PH OTO: RHS/NEIL HEP WORTH

Lupin
‘Masterpiece’

SCULPT IN SWEEPING CURVES
When you’re redesigning a sloping plot, it’s
tempting to think in straight lines – but set your
mind to curves instead and the result will be
much softer, disguising the sharp gradient far
more effectively. In The RAF Benevolent Fund
Garden by award-winning designer John Everiss
(johneverissdesign.com), designed for RHS
44 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

Chelsea Flower Show 2022 as part of the Project
Giving Back scheme, a stone retaining wall drew
a sweeping curve around a level patio area.
Building stone walls is big-budget stuff,
but you can cheat the look with a breezeblock wall clad with stone such as Raj Blend Dry
Fell Walling, £219.99/m2, pavingdirect.com.

EASY IDEAS

Golden bamboo

TRY THIS!

Small steep slope?
Transform it into a bank of
wildflowers with a Traditional
Meadowmat, from £16.87/m2,
turfonline.co.uk

A built-in water feature
helps to turn the necessary
wall into a garden highlight

So
easy!

Risers are the vertical
element of a step and,
as long as the slope isn’t
too steep, you can use
them to improve form
and access, as seen
here in an easy-on-theeye design by Helen
Elks-Smith (elks-smith.
co.uk). The trick is to
make the full height of
the riser visible at one
end but seamlessly
integrate the other end
into the slope, for a
natural finish.
You can achieve
the same effect
with long wooden
sleepers too: Green
Treated Railway Sleeper
3m x 200mm x 100mm,
£38.99, sure-green.com.

P HOTO: ELKS -SMITH .CO.U K

SINK STONE
RISERS INTO A
GENTLE SLOPE

CREATE TIERS OF PAVED TERRACES
Add structure to a gentle slope by combining steps and tiered terraces,
and teaming with beds of soft planting. In this masterclass of sloping
garden design, Helen Elks-Smith (elks-smith.co.uk) links the house to a
large dining pergola by way of an elegant lounge area. Opting for a series
of broad shallow steps in a smooth buff Yorkstone, the look is effortlessly
chic. “Using the same material for the paving, step treads and the wall
ties it all together, resulting in a softer look and feel,” Helen explains.
“This allows the planting and wider landscape to shine, rather than the
hard landscape materials.”
The rounded profile of bullnose steps helps to soften the expanse
of paving. Stone is expensive but you can cheat with a lookalike
product: Concrete Bullnose Step Tread in Cream Stone, £76.23/L1m
x W400mm, stonecrete-direct.co.uk.
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 45

Selina’s garden
NATURE’S CANVAS
Stylist & book author SELINA LAKE shares her
on-trend styling ideas & glorious garden buys

T

Selina
46 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

Showcase
old terracotta
pots on a shelf

Trending

now

Be inspired by the colours,
textures and tones found in
nature. Combine a variety of
greens with natural elements
such as weathered terracotta
pots and rattan baskets.

Toned-down textiles

My go-to styling props for an outside space
are cushions and throws as they instantly
add a homely and inviting feel. Look for
fringed edging and simple floral patterns as
well as earthy tones.

PHOTO: LIGHTS4FU N.CO.U K

Adding terracotta to your
outside space fits perfectly into
the Nature’s Canvas theme.
These aged terracotta plant
pots (£23/3, idyllhome.co.uk)
have a wonderful vintage
character and classic design –
or you might have some equally
lovely pots hiding in your shed!

PH OTO: MADAMSTOLTZ.DK

he signs of oncoming spring are all
around us and I’m tapping into this
gentle awakening from winter with
the Nature’s Canvas style theme. It’s
not a new idea to look to nature for design and
styling inspiration, but being mindful of the
natural world has become completely on-trend,
which is exactly how it should be!
Nature’s Canvas provides us with natural
materials that work in harmony with our outside
spaces. Its colour palette features olive greens,
rustic whites, hay tones and faded terracotta.
Textures also play an important part, as do
textiles in those earthy tones. They all combine
to create a wonderfully relaxing garden retreat.
And the style works in all gardens from modern
to cottage, and can easily be interpreted to fit
the structure of your space.
As a stylist, I’m always on the hunt for
interesting backdrops to create displays in front
of for a photo opportunity, whether that’s a
visually appealing view at an event or a joyful
scene in my own garden. There’s nothing better
than a slightly crumbling old stone or brick wall
adorned with lush green climbers! To create a
lovely backdrop in our garden, we leave an area
of our lawn to grow long and wild. And when
the grass stems have all grown feathery
summer flowers, I love to pick a few to
display in a vase. I think of my garden as
a canvas for styling but also as a space
for family gatherings, quiet moments and
impromptu afternoon tea and catch ups with
friends, and creating a peaceful backdrop
makes all these life happenings a little more
lovely. I hope you feel inspired by Nature’s
Canvas to do the same.

OUTDOOR LIVING

Gracious grasses

Instagram
@selinalake

PHOTO: BLOOMINGVILLE.COM

I’ve let a patch of our lawn grow wild and long
for 10 summers now, and I always look forward
to seeing its surprising array of flowers and
seedheads. Before your first spring mow, choose
which bit of your lawn you’re going to leave.

Calming space

Take inspiration from the
interior of this gorgeous
greenhouse. You could
recreate this look in
your summerhouse,
conservatory or on your
garden patio with bamboo
furniture, leafy plants,
textured pots and pale
earth-tone textiles.

Embrace your
backdrops
When you’re choosing your
planters and pots, try to match
them to the backdrop – these
work perfectly against the
weathered brick wall and fig tree.
Pots from £14.99, dobbies.com.

✽ NEXT MONTH:
CELEBRATE EASTER
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 47

GARDEN

makeover

“I don’t worry about
a few weeds”
Claire Smith has transformed her overgrown
Northants plot into a wonderful STRESS-FREE SPACE
full of colour and optimism
48 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

GARDEN MAKEOVER
BEFORE

It was a clear as mud that
was going to be a mucky jobthis
!

B

lessed with views across sheep-dotted
fields, the peaceful sounds of a babbling
brook trickling from the far boundary
and a plethora of cottage-garden
blooms awakening from their winter slumber,
it’s no wonder Claire Smith is skipping into her
spring garden with a smile on her face. Whether
that’s for a spot of late bulb planting, filling a few
more pots of colour to go around the front door,
weeding or just for a cuppa in the greenhouse,
she takes a relaxed approach to gardening.
While her third-of-an-acre plot keeps her
pretty busy, Claire is a big advocate of downing
tools and taking timeout in the garden to just
enjoy it. “I’m a huge fan of lazy afternoons and

tea in the garden,” she confirms. “Surely that’s
what spring sunshine is all about! It’s such a busy
time of year, it can be tempting to work through.
But now is the time the spring pots that have
been hatching all winter burst into their longawaited peak. Why wouldn’t I take a minute
to enjoy them? When the sun shines, even the
messiest garden looks good!”
Since leaving behind a career in educational
leadership in 2018, Claire now spends her
time writing, blogging and influencing, mainly
focused around creative projects in her home
and garden. “I’ve always been lucky enough to
live close to the countryside but haven’t had the
time to fully appreciate the lifestyle,” she says.
Having moved to her current house on the
edge of a village in rural Northamptonshire 15
years ago, shaping the garden into the beautiful
space it is today has been an ongoing labour of
love. “I’m pretty plant savvy, thanks to my dad
who was an avid gardener, so I’m passionate
about growing flowers,” she says.

My fave spring gems...

Antique tones and our native lemon are
my forever-favourite primrose colours.

A WOMAN WITH A PLAN
The newbuild house had been constructed on
land previously home to a farmyard and barns,
the east part of the garden used as a builder’s
yard and the soil compacted and swamped by
a tangle of weeds. A tricky start, maybe, but it’s
given Claire plenty of inspirational fodder for
her website and Insta page.
Undaunted by the enormity of the task
ahead, she set about designing her dream

➣

If you’ve craved deep colours all winter,
Iris reticulata are the best antidote.

OOOH WHAT WE’D
give to be sandwiched
among these bulb
lasagne pots and beds!

Tulip ‘World
Friendship’

Crocuses have to be ice blue, and in pots
to stop the birds destroying them.

FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 49

FEATU RE: ANGELA KEN NY. PH OTOS: CLAIRE SM ITH

Long-lasting hellebores are the flowers
that keep me going on dark winter days.

garden, sharing her ideas with her garden guru
dad, and encouraged by husband Martin and
their daughters Leah (24) and Harriet (23).
“I measured and drew a roughly-to-scale plan so
I could see how the areas could work together,”
recalls Claire. “There were no Pinterest boards
in those days, but I did avidly read garden
magazines. I cut out pictures I liked and took
inspiration from gardening books and visits
to other gardens, in particular my absolute
favourite – Perch Hill, Sarah Raven’s garden
in East Sussex.”

A STYLE IS BORN
The rear garden, north of the house, was
earmarked for a formal patchwork of paths, with
a greenhouse at one end and raised beds. For
the west side, where it’s more sunny but shaded
by a row of six mature lime trees, sweeping
borders were planned on either side of the
lawn. “The trees must be well over a hundred
years old, judging by their trunk girth,” Claire
remarks. “I call the 25m pathway that runs
underneath them the woodland walk. Very little
will grow here, except in early spring with bulbs,
hellebores, cowslips, brunnera and dicentra.”

spring-garden
Join Claire for morlae ire
_smithslife
joy on Insta at @c

MY GARDEN
PL AN
LOCATION Northamptonshire
THE LOOK Modern cottage garden
SITE Size 1/3 acre Faces North/north-west
Soil Clay
MY BUDGET
Greenhouse £1,500
Raised beds £3,000
Landscaping £5,000
Plants £2,000
TOTAL: £11,500
HOW LONG IT TOOK
Ongoing over 17 years

50 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

Along the east boundary, a steep bank runs
down to the village brook. “The brook’s banks
are not strictly part of the garden and form an
essential part of local water management, so I
leave well alone,” Claire shares. “But the brook
was very much part of my daughters’ childhood
with plenty of wading in wellies and cray fishing.”
Throughout the whole process, Claire was
mindful that she wanted to keep the views of
the fields to the north, but also protect the
garden from the rolling frost tumbling down the
slight hill. “It can be a cold garden in winter, slow
to warm in spring and temperatures can get as
low as -12°C,” she reveals.
Design decided and landscaper enlisted,
the hard physical work began. “I insisted the
landscaper left the planting to me, although I
asked for two multi-stemmed silver birches to
be planted in front of the woodland walk, either
side of the path,” Claire says. “The rest of the
planting I did and still do myself – it’s always an
on-going project.”

LOOKING FOR AN EASY LIFE
Claire admits she wouldn’t have been able to
tell you what her planting style was back in
those early days. Now, though, she describes it
as modern cottage. There are echoes of past
passions – grasses Miscanthus sinensis and
golden oat remain from a dabble with prairie
planting. And whims came and went. “I tried
to restrain my palette but the white garden
only lasted a season or two before a few purple
alliums crept in by mistake, and I liked them too
much to remove them,” Claire shares.
“Over the years, I’ve learnt to let go more with
the garden. It’s not possible for it to be perfect
and who says what perfect is anyway – there will
be some weeds around the edges, especially
at the end of summer when everything grows
madly. I’m learning to embrace a less manicured
approach, allowing the spilling over onto paths
for so long, then trying to regain a little control!”
she smiles. “I like flowers that are easy to grow
and are not divas in the amount of attention
they need – my dahlias now have to make it
through the winter with a thick mulch or I move
on to something else.”
A sucker for self-seeders, Claire isn’t stressed
by a few bare patches either. “Large group
plantings are very effective but once flowering
is over, you can’t always have the next thing in
the same place. But it can be nearby, maybe
in pots in front. Your eye will move to the next
patch of colour a bit further along,” she says.
“And I’m not a patient gardener but I have learnt
that by growing from seed and dividing plants, a
great deal of money can be saved.”
Right now, lime-green hellebores shine in
the woodland garden alongside aconites and
snowdrops. A stroll takes you to the delights
of pink saxifrage, cerise ranunculus and pale
yellow violas. And it won’t be long before tulip
season transforms the railway-sleeper beds into
a jumble of colour. Claire’s no-dig approach,
along with the joys of raised-bed drainage,
means a light weed at the beginning and end
of the year is all they need. “As the years have
gone on, more and more spring bulbs have

SMART IDEAS
TO STEAL
LET A WILDER VIBE
grow in your garden.
MAKE A NOTE
in your calendar to plant lots more
spring bulbs in October.
LAY A TERRACOTTA POT
in a border – it makes a good
wildlife shelter as well as a feature.
been added to the raised beds,” she says.
“Potted daffs and indoor hyacinths always end
up in there after they’ve finished flowering!”

LIVING IN HARMONY
As well as family members, Claire also shares
the garden with feline friends Big Cat and Little
Cat, and they’re not short of other visitors.
“We’re lucky enough to have a plethora of
wildlife that visits the garden including foxes,
hedgehogs, pheasants, squirrels, voles, moles,
mice, owls, bats and birds galore – kestrels, red
kites, both green and common woodpeckers,
and garden birds,” Claire effuses. “We all rub
along together but it is important I don’t rock
the boat with chemicals or drastic changes to
their winter shelter.”
Human friends are also welcome, and there’s
an occasional barbecue or soaks in the hot tub,
But when it’s time to get away from it all, you’ll
find Claire in her home-from-home greenhouse.
“It’s full of good-looking practicalities – wellused terracotta pots stacked in groups of
varying sizes; my dad’s well-worn trowel, now
over 50 years old and functioning as my trowel;
metal watering cans, slate plant labels, baskets
and wooden trugs. They give the greenhouse
a rustic feel, and I love that they’re usable and
used,” she says. “It’s my favourite spot of all, my
little escape, particularly for a glass of plum wine
at dusk on a spring evening!”

Claire’s tips for
a happy garden
The secret ingredient to a garden
is… you! You’re the key ingredient:
you choose the structure, the planting,
the style, the feel, the use. It’s all you!
Every path needs a destination. It
doesn’t have to be a sofa – it could
be a statue, a multi-stemmed tree or a
large pot stuffed full of seasonal joy.
Don’t waste the bulbs and plants in
spring pots. Plant them up in your
garden and just see what happens! Some
may not survive but most will be just fine.
Just after it rains is the best time
to get outside and do some
deadheading. It’ll bring more blooms to
your garden, and it smells amazing!

GARDEN MAKEOVER

LITTLE CAT
inviting herself to tea.
We don’t blame her!
THERE’S ALWAYS
time for a daff faff.

WHY JUST POTTER
around the garden when you
can swish in a new dress?!

BRING ON THE
trumpets! Claire has finetuned the drifts of daffs.

WAKEY WAKEY!

This punchy garden bursts into spring
with swathes of spry blooms and
big smiles all round
LOVE IS IN THE AIR
– spelling it out with
heart-warming snowdrops.

GIRLS JUST WANNA
have five minutes peace
and tea in the greenhouse!

THIS TABLE SETTING
has got us on cloud wine!

DAZZLING DAFFS
take on a whole new look
floating in a waterbowl.

Pelargonium
tomentosum

FEBRUARY 2024

POTTY FOR
a dotty hellebore.

JUGS AT THE
ready, there are
plenty of tulips
to go round.

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 51

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Elevate your outdoor haven with bespoke weatherproof
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Meticulously crafted using high-quality oils on durable
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FEATURE: GEOFF HODGE,
EMMA KEN DELL

Helsinki Double
Swing Seat, £799,
next.co.uk

➣
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 53

FRAMED SWING SEATS
Got fond memories of sitting on a swing seat at
your nana’s house? These trad pieces of garden
furniture are getting a makeover and there are
some stunning modern versions coming onto
the market. These are a better option if you’ve
got a young family, as they’re much easier to
get in and out of, and generally sit lower to the
ground than hanging egg chairs. They’re great
for sharing with friends too, when an egg chair
might feel a tad too cosy! Many have in-built
shades, which is handy if you’ve got a sun-baked
plot. You’ll find designs made from wood or
metal, often coated for protection.
Some have plush cushions, but do check the
small print as, if they’re not marked as
all-weather or shower-resistant, you’ll have to
bring them inside at the slightest glimpse of a
shower. Outdoor-proof cushions are also more
resistant to fading and easier to keep clean.
If practicality is your primary purpose, then
look for Textilene mesh fabric, made from
woven polyester, which is extremely durable and
water resistant.

Double Folding Egg Chair,
£399, dobbies.com

Folding
design

2 Seater Metal
Garden Swing
Chair – Natural,
£320 argos.co.uk

Garden Swing
Seat by Wensum,
£359 cherry-lane.co.uk

Lima Deluxe Aluminium Swing Seat in
Washed Grey, £1,999 harbourlifestyle.co.uk
54 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

STYLISH EGG CHAIRS
Available in one, two and even three-seater
designs, egg chairs provide a secluded haven
suspended above the ground. If you want to
be able to leave your chair outside, look for a
steel (usually powder-coated or painted with
scratch-resistant paint to prevent rusting) or
stainless-steel frame wrapped in synthetic
polyrattan. This is far more durable than natural
rattan or beautiful bamboo, which are better
kept indoors over winter.
Be practical when it comes to the stand too.
Some are made from wood and, while they
look fab, you’ll need to treat them with oil or
preservative if they’re to last, and they’re heavy
to move around.
Most chairs come with padded made-tomeasure cushions that fit perfectly inside, but
they’re typically not weatherproof. If you want
to be able to nip out to enjoy your egg chair
without any faff at this time of year, then it’s
worth looking for a model with a matching
zip-up cover. While cushions stored long-term
inside a cover run the risk of getting mouldy,
they’ll be fine for a week or two at a time.

Charles Bentley
Outdoor Single
Hanging Swing
Chair, £540
next.co.uk

BEST BUYS
Amazonas Globo
Royal Double Seater
Hanging Chair, £799.99
plus stand, £644.99
robertdyas.co.uk

Bologna Teal
Egg Chair, £299
dobbies.com

Folding Basket
Swing Egg Chair, £349
roselandfurniture.com

BOHO MACRAMÉ CRADLES
With the boho trend back and bigger than
ever, there are plenty of knotted hanging seats
on the market. Typically made of polycotton
rope woven over metal or plastic hoops, they’ll
happily last a few seasons in your garden. Be
aware that if they’re left to get wet, too often,
that lovely ecru fringing will get a green tinge!
Do check out the maximum loading before
you buy as that’s often less than you think,
particularly on double-seater options. And
think about where you’ll hang it. We don’t all
have the luxury of a sizeable tree, and many
pergolas aren’t sturdy enough to cope with
the momentum of a swing seat as well as the
weight of its occupants. If you’re unsure, then
choosing a seat that spreads the weight over
two hanging points rather than one is wise, or
buying a double swing seat and using it for one
person can be a workable solution. You’ll need
to buy suitable attachments too – search ‘swing
hooks’ on amazon.co.uk for all sorts of options,
including sleeves to protect tree branches.

Reelak
Double Swing
Seat, £210
laredoute.co.uk

Hanging
Macramé
Swing Seat,
£79 dobbies.com

Macramé Swing
Chair, £30,
dunelm.com

Milano Teardrop
Egg Chair – Black,
£550 ellajames.co.uk
Hanging Chair
with Stand Beige
ALLERA, £519.99
beliani.co.uk

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swing.com
TIP Zone your
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n
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,
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Outdoor Circle R
F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4 M O D E R N G A R D E N S 55

SNUG PADDED HAMMOCKS
While we think of hammocks as summer
loungers, there are plenty of robust models that
put a thick layer of warm padding between you
and the chilly air beneath you. And hammocks
are a handy option for this time of year as it’s
quick to hang one up as and when you fancy.
Most garden hammocks are spreader bar, also
called American, hammocks, and these have a
block or bar at each end to evenly space out the
supporting ropes. The material of the hammock
remains open, which makes it much easier for
you to get in and out of than a classic hammock
without this bar.
Do check what they’re made from: most manmade fabrics are weatherproof, UV-resistant

and can safely be left outside if it’s not raining
without too much worry, but natural materials
are more likely to need storing indoors when
they’re not in use.
Don’t have perfectly placed trees or strong
fence posts to hang your hammock on?
You’ll need a hammock stand, which has the
advantage that you can move it wherever you
want, whether that’s chasing the sun or finding
a shady spot. Wooden stands will need regular
treatment to prevent rotting and are heavier to
move, but look attractive, while metal is lighter
and more durable. If space is at a premium, look
for a folding stand that’s easy to store.

4

stylish steals if
you’re on a budget
Hanging Chair
NITTEDAL D80
Off-white, £49.99
jysk.co.uk
Double
Hammock, £66.99
wayfair.co.uk

Hammock Family
‘Big Fat’ Grey, £416.90
hammockgiant.co.uk

2 Person
Striped Cotton
Hammock with
Stand, £119.99
vonhaus.com

Fatboy
Headdemock, from
£419 fatboy.com

Amazonas Fat
Hammock – Taupe,
£499.99 robertdyas.co.uk
American Dream Grey
Hammock with Spreader Bar,
£145 sleepyhammock.co.uk

Extreme Lounging
B Hammock, £449,
cuckooland.com

Shop the easy way!
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56 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

Swing Seat with Canopy,
£119.99 vonhaus.com

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Geranium F1 ‘Best Red’ 30 Garden Ready Plants £25.98
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These weather tolerant, F1 hybrid
pelargoniums have more than
enough vigour to ensure a
spectacular, free flowering display
throughout summer. Geranium
‘Jackpot Mixed’ produce masses
of colourful single blooms on
neat compact plants. Perfect for
filling beds, borders and patio
containers. Height: 40cm (16”).
Spread: 35cm (14”)

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Suttons’ new spring varieties deliver just what’s required to continue to inspire the nation’s
gardeners, with new additions throughout for 2024!
Offer subject to availability. We reserve the right to substitute varieties if necessary
*Please note that savings are based on the equivalent of multiples of the cheapest pack size. ©
2024 Suttons. † Regretfully we are unable to ship live plants to the following postcode areas: HS,
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are also unable to seeds or plants to EU countries and Northern Ireland.

rosa ‘Our Beth’

Every garden deserves a rose...
We feel that every garden deserves a rose
and every rose from our extensive world
OHDGLQJFROOHFWLRQLVRIWKHîQHVWTXDOLW\
carefully selected and hand cultivated
to the highest of standards here in East
Anglia.
Modern Gardens readers can now enjoy
a special discount of 10% off all Bare
Root Roses* until 16th February 2024 with
discount code MG24.

01953 454707 Norfolk NR17 1AY

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www.classicroses.co.uk

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OUTDOOR LIVING

Immune-boosting

CINNAMON BREW
We might be on the cusp of spring but after a
long winter we could all benefit from a bit
of a boost, so dust off your spice rack and
reach for the cinnamon sticks. With its
antibacterial properties, this spiced
cinnamon brew can help ward off
unwanted little nasties. Adding
ginger, turmeric, lemon juice and
honey not only makes it feel
indulgent (it happily tastes like
dessert) but turns this cuppa
into an antioxidant powerhouse.
And just wait until you inhale
the fabulous feel-good scent!

Drink
anyone?

FEBRUARY TIPPLE

FEATU RE: CLARE WALKER. PH OTO: SU PERSTOCK

Makes enough for 1 cup
YOU WILL NEED
✽ 375ml water
✽ 5cm piece fresh ginger root, sliced
✽ 2 cinnamon sticks (you can dry & re-use
them)
✽ 1/4tsp turmeric powder
✽ Juice of 1 lemon
✽ 1tsp honey (adjust to taste)
WHAT TO DO
1 Put the water, ginger and cinnamon
sticks in a saucepan and bring to the boil.
Add the turmeric powder and gently
simmer for 5 mins.
2 Remove from the heat and allow to cool
a little before straining into a mug.
3 Stir in the lemon juice and honey.

more
s
a
h
it
s
a
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e
n
o
h
TIP Use raw
tioxidants
n
a
d
n
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ts
n
ie
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beneficial n
ed hone y
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than
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 59

Be my

VALENTINE
Switch up a bunch of M&S roses into a SWISH BOUQUET
with truffle sticks for your fave squeeze, says JANE SCOTT
ove is in the air, everywhere I look
around – or so the 70s disco song
says! As Galentine’s and Valentine’s
Day approach, my little workshop
is choc-full of Cupid’s flowers, and
beautiful bouquets are still the top
pick to express your love, especially if they’re
made with romantic red roses. These crimson
petals deliver mighty messages of passion,
desire and devotion, and are a timeless way to
show how you feel without the need for words.
I’ve taken this ruby-red icon of romance and
combined it with a treat of tempting truffles
to make a big-hearted and blooming tasty
bouquet for my lovely partner Simon. It’s a
bespoke and touching way to say thankyou for
all his kindness, patience, love and support. All
I’ve used is a bunch of M&S red roses and a box
of their delish truffle chocs, and mixed in some
garden greenery, so it’s great value as well as a
grand gesture. Have fun!

P HOTOS: SIMON SMITH

Jane

I cut my white tissue into 10cm squares,
wrapped up each truffle, and taped them
to the sticks. I cut the claret and one
piece of cerise tissue into 15cm squares, made a
hole in the middles, threaded the stick through,
then gathered the tissue and tied with ribbon. I’ve
taped 2 sticks together to make them longer.

3

60 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

Jane’s floral faffery lo
and is easy and thriftyoks stylish
to create

I’ve always had a soft spot for M&S
flowers. The velvety rich red petals of
these ‘Indulgent’ roses are irresistible,
and I’m using 12 stems. To complement these
I’ve chosen deep green garden foliage: 3 stems
each of trailing ivy and eucalyptus ‘Parvi’, 2
berried ivy, 1 bay and some privet.

From ribbons to tissue paper and all
the bits in-between, this is everything
else I used: lengths of cerise, claret
and red ribbon; 2 sheets of cerise tissue paper, 1
claret and 1 white; 1 sheet of brown paper; brown
sticky tape, twine and scissors; a box of M&S
truffles; and a pack of wooden kebab sticks.

Now to the flowery fun bit! I placed the
bay on the table then added a stem
of privet, trailing ivy and eucalyptus to
either side, crossing the stems near the bottom.
I laid 2 roses and 2 truffle sticks on top. Next,
I put 3 roses 6cm lower. I repeated these two
steps with the remaining roses and truffle sticks.

After adding ivy and eucalyptus at
the front to cover the stems, I tied the
lot tightly with twine where the stems
cross. I placed the brown paper and other cerise
tissue together and folded them in half, laid the
bouquet on top and wrapped the sides up and
over, secured with tape, then tied on ribbons.

1

4

2

5

SIMPLE PROJECT
Instagram
@janescottflowers
blog janescottflowers.com

Add a
touch of
loveliness

l d us e
u
o
c
u
o
y
o
s
,
r
a
e
y
TIP It’s a leap
our l ove!
y
e
r
a
l
c
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to
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y our bouqu

FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 61

Lucide Joy
Led Table Lamp
– Orange, £59.99
lighting-direct.co.uk
Pink Cherry
Blossom Tree,
£24.99
very.co.uk

Cactus Solar Garden
Stake Light 40cm,
£7.99 qdstores.co.uk

Twist Torch Outdoor Candle
Purple, £9.99 dobbies.com

Vibrant
accents

Metal Glow In The Dark
Mushroom Stake – Red,
£2.99 therange.co.uk

Metal Dandelion, £19.99
therustedbumblebee.co.uk

60

FEEL-GOOD
FINDS

Butterfly Plant Stake, £18
shop.nationaltrust.org.uk

We predict a
Cheer your garden from boring to bright in an
instant with a DOPAMINE DECOR buy
Burgon & Ball
RHS FloraBrite
Hand Trowel
– Pink, £10.99
greenfingers.com

FEATURE: JULES BARTON-BRECK, EM MA KENDELL.
WATERING CAN P HOTO: © JONATH AN BUCKLEY

9L Watering
Can, £32.95
sarahraven.com

62 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

EASY IDEAS

TRY THIS!

Stella Chimenea in Cherry Red,
£233.99, originalorganics.co.uk

Outdoor Chair
– Acapulco Green
Steel, Synthetic
Rattan, £233.67
manomano.co.uk
Large Bright
Green Standing
Gnome Figure,
£69 tangand.co.uk

Dreamy
greens

Veeva Recliner Indoor
Outdoor Bean Bag &
Pouffe Lime Green
Bean Bag Chair,
£69.99 diy.com

Geo Fusion Indoor Outdoor
Circle Rug, £79, dunelm.com
Fruity Feeder,
£2.99 therange.co.uk

Sundsö
Outdoor Green
Table plus 2 chairs,
£105 ikea.com

➣
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 63

Loft Urban Pots
in Ochre,
from £7.49,
elho.com

64 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

EASY IDEAS
Demure Aqua 3
Seater Garden Sofa in
Red, £935 slf24.co.uk

254. Spring
Puffin Masonry
Paint, £32/1L
fenwickandtilbrook.com

Radiant
reds

Green
Basics Watering
Can 10L Lime
Green, £24.69
elho.com

Spear & Jackson
Colours Pink Kneeler,
£17.99 gardendivas.co.uk

Metal
Rio Garden
Table in
Red, £59
laredoute.co.uk

Kolbjörn
Cabinet In/Outdoor,
Brown-red, £80 ikea.com
Fermob Cocotte Coffee
Table with Detachable Top
in Orangey-Red, £109
madeindesign.co.uk

Practical
pretties

Nardi
Net Lounge Chair,
£119 fenwick.co.uk
Bristol Shire Mucker
Pink Wheelbarrow, £104.99
wheelbarrows.co.uk
Deluxe Carbon Steel
Secateurs Yellow, £10
therange.co.uk

Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew by Spear
& Jackson Gardening
Gloves, Pink, Small,
£13.99 johnlewis.com
Lumineo Light Up
Insect House Bug Hotel,
£20.59 amazon.co.uk

Bangura Planter
Box in Orange,
£10.99 wayfair.co.uk

Spear & Jackson Kew
Gardens Collection
Multi Function Spray
Gun Pink, £19.99 diy.com

Burgon &
Ball RHS British
Meadow Collection
Gardening Snips,
£11.99 johnlewis.com

Low side table,
£39.99 hm.com

Anyday Colour Block
Leaf Garden Cushion
in White/Cobalt, £12
johnlewis.com
Skarpö Outdoor
Armchair in Dark Blue,
£55 ikea.com

Blue
beauties

Small 16cm Blue Tit
Bird Garden Ornament,
£14 robertdavidhome.com

Bolero
Perth Blue
Pavement
Style Steel
Table Round
600mm, £53.98
nisbets.co.uk
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 65

➣

Folding
Wooden Deck
Chair – Yellow,
£35 diy.com

vidaXL
Sunshade Sail,
Yellow 4 x 4 x 5.8m,
£32.99 vidaxl.co.uk

Birdhouse
In Recycled
Sari, £29.95,
namaste-uk.com

Outdoor Ochre
Cone Solar Light,
£59 laredoute.co.uk

Satin
Ribbon
Windsock
Streamer,
£19.99
amazon.co.uk

Fanosa 21cm
High Indoor/
Outdoor
Lantern, £20
laredoute.co.uk

Sunny
delights

Mix &
match
Velvet Saffron
Yellow Throw, £79
Feleti
Outdoor Coffee/ countrymouse.co.uk
Side Table in Yellow,
£65 laredoute.co.uk

House of
Bloom Celandine
Rectangular Outdoor
Cushion in Saffron,
£11 furn.com

Furn Coralina
Outdoor Modern Rug,
£40 matalan.co.uk

red LED Festoon
Solar Multi Col9ou, festive-lights.com
Lights, £19.9

Muse Orange
Retro Area Rug,
£43.99 wayfair.co.uk

Two-Tone Striped Parasol,
£110 laredoute.co.uk

Gardening
Kew Gardens Eco-Kind div
.co.uk
Gloves, £5.95, garden as
Furn Plain
Outdoor Cushion,
£15 dunelm.com

Red Outdoor
Garden Furniture Seat
Scatter Cushion with
Pad, £8.99 beanlazy.com

Habitat Ipanema 4 Seater
Metal Garden Sofa Set in
Yellow, £220 argos.co.uk

Vector Leaves
Outdoor Cushion,
£19.99
listercartwright.co.uk
66 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

Colourpop
cushions

Plain
Neon Large
Outdoor
Floor
Cushion in
Yellow, £22
furn.com
Kaikoo
Outdoor
Cushion, £10
direct.asda.com
Plain
Indoor/
Outdoor
Cushion in
Aegean, £12
johnlewis.com

EASY IDEAS

TRY THIS!

Outdoor Battery Silver Wire Fairy
Lights, 2m, 20 Pink LEDs,
£4.99, festive-lights.com

Garden
joy

Orange LED Hurricane Lantern,
£19.95, rexlondon.com

SPECIAL

FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 67

COME
ON IN AND

JOIN THE
FUN!

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with a MODERN GARDENS Subscription

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Top your pots
Over time, compost in pots
becomes compacted and
depleted of nutrients, so scrape
off the top few centimetres
and replace it with fresh to
give plants a boost ahead of
spring. Add a controlled-release
fertiliser (try Miracle-Gro All
Purpose Continuous Release
Plant Food, £8/900g,
wickes.co.uk) while you’re at
it, then water. You could also
sprinkle the soil surface with
Vermiculite, grit, small stones
or bark to keep in moisture.

WHAT TO DO IN YOUR

#10
GREEN
minutes

THIS MONTH
Simple steps to keep your plot looking good
70 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

EASY IDEAS

Beautify buddlejas
Cut all last year’s shoots to the
lowest two pairs of buds, and
snip off any thin weak stems, or
it’ll become unruly with smaller
clusters of flowers. Sprinkle a
controlled-release fertiliser over
the soil a few weeks later and it’ll
bounce back better than ever.

Recharge roses
Want showstopper roses this
summer? Now’s the time to
feed these hungry plants
that will have taken a lot of
goodness from the soil. At the
end of Feb, sprinkle
granular rose
food (try Toprose,
£4.95/1kg, diy.com)
over the soil around them.

Shape heathers
To keep these winter faves
dense, trim faded flowers with
sharp shears and remove some
of the new growth. Cut more
from the edges than the top to
create a dome, but don’t snip
into any old woody growth.

Refresh orchids
A loss of nutrients, congested roots
and fungal diseases can affect
flower power and now’s a good
time to repot. Take the orchid
out of its pot, rinse the roots with
rainwater and replant into a pot
of orchid compost (try Orchid
Focus, £4.99/3L, hortology.co.uk).
Using a clear pot will allow the
roots to photosynthesise.

Check climbers
Tie in any loose stems that
have become unattached
during winter storms.

PHOTO: © JONATHAN BUCKLEY

Sow sweet-pea seeds
For bunches of sweetly scented flowers
late-spring, pop seeds in pots (two seeds
per 7.5cm pot) now, 4-5cm deep. Water
to keep the compost moist, not wet, and
place on a cool well-lit windowsill. Use tall
biodegradable pots (Sarah Raven Sweet Pea
Fibre Pots, £7.95/24, sarahraven.com) and
you can pop the lot straight into the ground
in March, minimising root disturbance for
stronger plants and more blooms.
➣
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 71

STEP-BY-STEP
PRUNE APPLE TREES

Shape now for a bumper harvest.

2 Remove any thin or weak
stems, which can cause
crowding and encourage
diseases like mildew.

Plant a tree
Planning to add structure
to your plot with a tree this
year? Now’s the very best
time to plant one as the soil
will soon be warm enough
for roots to get growing for
the best-possible start. Plus,
buying bareroot is much
cheaper than potted. Soak
the roots in water first, and
sprinkle mycorrhizal fungi
(Rootgrow Mycorrhizal
Fungi, £2.99/60g,
jparkers.co.uk) over them
when you plant, to help
your new tree draw in
more water and nutrients.

72 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

3 Cut stems from
crowded areas so forming
fruit can get enough light
and air to ripen well.

Fill gaps in a flash
Potted daffs are coming into
flower and you can pick up
bargain pots at supermarkets
and DIY stores. It’s a lovely job
for a sunny afternoon, simply
plant in the ground with the
bulbs a little deeper than
they are in the pot.

4 Shorten any long
unbranched stems to get
bushier growth with more
branches, for more fruit.

COMPILED BY ANGELA KENNY. PHOTOS: GEOFF STEBBINGS, DEBI HOLLAND, SHUTTERSTOCK, ROB SMITH

1 Cut off stems with
dead sunken bark (signs
of canker) to prevent
infection spreading.

EASY IDEAS

Seek the first signs of spring
Spring in the UK may not officially start till
March 20 but make it an every-day habit to
pop outside and chart its progress in your
garden. We’re pre-programmed to rest in the
dark of winter and get busy as the days
lighten, and the simple act of being in natural
light will kickstart this energising instinct.
Seeing signs of spring will bring optimism for
the future too, so look for bulbs pushing
pointed tips through frozen soil, and check
roses, hydrangeas and trees for emerging
leaf-buds. Research shows that regularly
experiencing positive emotions can amplify
feelings for an upward spiral of wellbeing, so
don’t miss a day, even if it’s chilly outside.

Share the joy!
Search #10greenminutes on Facebook and
share your in-the-garden moments with our
happy tribe of modern gardeners…

#10
GREEN
minutes

Enjoying the winter sunshine.
Carol-Ann Ure

Admiring my new garden have
n.
Paula Morgan

#10greenminutes

Join our wellness campaign and use your garden
to boost your mind, body and soul by popping
outside for at least 10 minutes every day. Search
#10greenminutes on Facebook and Instagram.

Loving the lights in the early evening.
Elisabeth Quinn
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 73

Plant
it this
weekend!

GROW A

Choose a sunny sheltered spot for a late-summer harvest
of seedless grapes you can EAT OFF THE VINE

Grape ‘Lakemont’ is a reliable
hardy variety that can be
planted outside in February

8
6
.
8
£7
YOU WILL NEED
✽ 5 x 1.8m bamboo canes:
£5/10 diy.com
✽ Twine, trug, trowel &
watering can
✽ 50cm pot with drainage
hole: Low Honey Pot, £34.70
greatgardensonline.com

74 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

In June, underplant
with nasturtiums for
a splash of colour

✽ Crocks or flat stones
✽ John Innes No.3 Compost,

£10.99/30L amazon.co.uk
✽ Grape ‘Lakemont’, £23.99/3L pot
suttons.co.uk
✽ High-potash liquid feed:
Levington Tomorite, £4/1L tesco.com

FEATU RE: EMMA KENDELL, GEOFF HODGE. P HOTOS: G AP P HOTOS

SIMPLE PROJECT

1

Cut two of the canes to make four
short lengths and tie onto three fulllength canes to make a fan frame.

2

Position the pot against a sheltered
sunny south-facing wall or fence, and
insert the cane frame towards the back.

3

Cover the drainage hole(s) with crocks
(pieces of broken terracotta pots) or
flat stones.

4

Fill the planter with compost, lightly
firming as you fill, especially around all
the bamboo canes so they’re secure.

5

Make a well in the compost, ease the
plant out of its plastic pot and insert with
the top of the rootball 2cm below the lip.

6

With the frame leaning against the
fence and the vine angled towards the
frame, top with compost and firm well.

7

Tie the vine to the frame, spacing the
stems well and tying in figures-of-eight
so the vine doesn’t rub on the cane.

8

Water till it dribbles from the base.
Keep the compost moist throughout
spring and summer.

9

Feed your grapevine fortnightly MaySeptember with a high-potash liquid
feed, and watch those grapes grow!

FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 75

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BEST BUYS

Moodboosting
blooms

Wonderful
WALLFLOWERS
Months of KALEIDOSCOPIC COLOURS
make these easy-grow plants a modern must-have

W

FEATU RE: CLARE WALKER. PH OTOS: SH UTTERSTOCK, GAP PHOTOS/JONATH AN BUCKLEY/NICOLA STOCKEN

‘Winter Sorbet’

e’ve no idea why we
don’t all grow more
wallflowers because
they’re hassle-free and
heavenly! Also known as erysimums,
the clusters of small blooms range
in shades from white through
to a wonderful world of apricot,
tangerine and terracotta to reds,
pinks and purples, and some have
a sweet and spicy fragrance that
will stop you in your tracks. Many
varieties start blooming in February
or March and carry on till July or
August! They’re incredibly versatile,
fitting into any garden whether that’s
as an intense pop of colour in a sleek
modern container or bringing spring
joy to a cottage-garden border.
They’re straightforward to grow
from a scattering of seed in summer
or bareroot plants in autumn, but
right now you’ll need to check out
your local garden centre for a pot of
about-to-flower blooms.

EXPE

£4/9CT TO PAY
cm p
ot

➣
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 77

How to make your new plant happy
✽ PICK A HEALTHY PLANT

Wallflowers can be confusing because there
are both biennials and perennials. Biennial
simply means that the plant spends its first year
growing roots and leaves, then flowers and dies
the following year; perennial means it flowers
year after year. The biennial varieties have the
best scent but, as you’re buying an aboutto-flower erysimum, it’ll only last for this year.
Choose a perennial and you’ll have the benefit
of blooms for a few years, although they are
quite short-lived plants that tend to fizzle out
after 4-5 years. Either way, look for a plant with
deep green foliage and plenty of well-branched
stems that form a bushy shape. The stems
should be sturdy and upright, supporting the
weight of the foliage without bending.

✽ KEEP IT ALIVE

Wallflowers are easy to grow and need little
more than a sunny spot and well-drained soil.
Dig some compost into the soil and, to ensure
good air circulation, space the plants according
to the recommendations for the variety you’ve
chosen, generally 30-45cm apart for biennials.
Keep the soil consistently moist, especially
during dry periods, but avoid overwatering as
wallflowers are susceptible to root rot.

✽ HELP IT THRIVE

‘Tom Thumb’

Once your plant is in the ground, give it a boost
with an all-purpose balanced fertiliser (such as
Miracle-Gro All Purpose Liquid Plant Food,
£3.99/1L, sam-turner.co.uk) for more blooms.
Regular deadheading will also encourage your
plants to produce flowers for longer.

✽ HOW LONG WILL
IT LAST?

Both biennial and perennial
wallflowers can bloom for
several months. If it’s a
biennial, once it’s finished
flowering, pop the plant
in your green bin or on
your compost heap.
If it’s a perennial, leave it
in the ground for more
flowers next year. Give it
a light trim in September
without cutting into the older
woodier growth, and add a layer
of mulch all around.

Perennial but short‘Winter Orchid’ (£23 lived, scented
.50
sarahraven.com) flowe /3 x 9cm pots,
rs March-August.

Good to know…
l ‘Bowles’s Mauve’
Short-lived perennia s.co.uk) flowers
(£5.99/9cm pot, crocu to July.
from February
78 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

Look out for biennial
‘Fi
of the earliest to flowe re King’ as it’s one
r, with a rich mix of
marmalade-orange me
rging into crimson.

Leave a few of your biennial
erysimums in the ground to
self-seed and you’ll have free
baby plants next year.

BEST BUYS

Dinky

Moodboosting
blooms

Trigger your HAPPY HORMONES with
sunny yellows and the sweetest of scents

Hoop-petticoat
daffodil

EXPE

FEATU RE: CLARE WALKER. PH OTOS: SH UTTERSTOCK

£5/9CT TO PAY
cm p
ot

F

ew plants make promises of
warmer days ahead quite like a
daff. Most flower in March and
April but there are some that,
unable to quash their enthusiasm,
show their happy faces in February.
Obviously all daffs are a welcome sight
at this time of year, but subtle and
stylish dwarf daffs take our garden joy
to a new level. They’re a great choice
for a no-faff pot of blooms on your
patio table, where you’ll be able to
enjoy their oh-so-sweet scent. Or pop
a few clumps into your front garden to
cheer your return home on dismal days.
You needn’t worry about these daintylooking daffs not being as tough as
their big blousy cousins either – in fact,
they have the advantage of not keeling
over at the first sign of a storm. For
instant gratification, head to your local
garden centre right now and pick up
some ready-to-flower potted bulbs.

FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 79

➣

How to make your new plants happy
✽ PICK HEALTHY PLANTS

nutrients. Alternatively, you can plant them into
the garden, making sure you add plenty
of grit and rotted farmyard manure to heavier
clay soils. For the best blooms next year,
feed every couple of weeks with a highpotassium organic liquid plant feed (try High
Potassium Liquid Fertiliser, £7.79/500ml,
elixirgardensupplies.co.uk) until the leaves
have completely died back.

At this time of year, these little lovelies will be
lined up outside supermarkets, DIY stores and
garden centres ready to be plucked off the
racks. Look for a pot with the healthiest green
foliage and lots of buds, but no fully open
flowers. Usually available as cell plant trays or
9cm pots, the bulbs will be crammed in and this
is fine for one season, but they’ll need replanting
if you want to keep them for years to come.

✽ HOW LONG WILL THEY LAST?

✽ KEEP THEM ALIVE

Potted daffodil bulbs can rebloom for 2-3 years,
but will do better if you move them to a spot in
the ground, then dig up some bulbs to put into
a pot each year, if you want. Once in the ground
they will multiply, turning into a big clump and
returning year-after-year. After 5-10 years, the
bulbs can get overcrowded, resulting in fewer
and smaller blooms. It’s simple to sort – just dig
them up, pull the clump apart into chunks, and
replant each section.

Dwarf narcissus are easy to grow and thrive with
minimal effort – simply plant your ready-potted
bulbs into a larger pot filled with peat-free
compost, or straight into the ground. Once
planted, water in well. Those in the ground
won’t need watering again, but water pots
whenever the compost starts to feel dry, being
careful not to make it too soggy. Full sun is ideal
but they’ll tolerate a partially shaded spot.

✽ HELP THEM THRIVE

If you want your bulbs to reflower year after
year, deadhead once the flowers fade, removing
the flowerhead and a couple of centimetres of
stalk, and leave the foliage to die back naturally.
If you keep your daffs in a pot, replace half of
the compost each year to give a fresh source of

Teeny ‘Rip van W
inkl
daff with its strik e’ is unlike any other
ing starburst look
s.

‘Tête-à-T
per stem for ête’ boasts multiple bloo
a prolonged
ms
d
and happin isplay of colour
ess!

t beauty
is a brigh d vivid
’
e
r
tfi
e
J
‘
etals an
n find it,
If you ca lish swept-back p ets.
p
y
um
with st
orange tr

Good to
know…

yellow flowers?
Not a fan of bright ful burst of creamy
iss
bl
‘Minnow’ gives a ttery yellow cups.
blooms and bu
80 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

If you want to pick
your daffs for a vase,
do it when they’re at
gooseneck stage –
when the buds are fat
and full but still closed.
They’ll open within 24
hours and last for a
good week.

‘Tête-à-Tête’

BEST BUYS

Theatrical
AURICULAS

Fall in love with the TIMELESS CHARMS
of these trending bijou blooms

FEATURE: CLARE WALKER. P HOTOS: SHU TTERSTOCK, GAP PH OTOS/MARTIN H UGH ES -JONES

Moodboosting
blooms

‘Harry Hotspur’

EXPE

W

ant to be bowled over
by one of the greatest
pleasures of spring? Start
a love affair with auriculas.
Members of the Primula family, they’ve
long been loved for their rich colours
and distinctive flowers. The Victorians
were so in awe of these diminutive
beauties that they displayed multiple
pots of them in theatres made from

shelves or steps, which had the added
benefit of sheltering the plants from
the wettest winter weather too. Take a
look at Insta and you’ll see that we’re
adoring auriculas all over again! Upcycle
a wooden crate or an old bookcase
into a mini theatre and collect a few, or
simply pop a single pot where you sit for
your coffee on a sunny day – either way,
prepare to swoon…

£5/9CT TO PAY
cm p
ot

➣
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 81

How to make your new plant happy
✽ PICK A HEALTHY PLANT

The leaves of a healthy auricula are typically
green, vibrant and free from discoloration,
yellowing or spotting. It’s worth gently teasing
the plant out of its pot to check the roots are
healthy (firm and white) and not mushy.

✽ KEEP IT ALIVE

We recommend growing your auricula
in a pot because, being alpines, they like
free-draining soil and that’s often easier
to achieve in a container. You’ll be able to
appreciate its exquisite charms up-close too.
Choose a pot with drainage holes (auriculas
are traditionally displayed in terracotta pots)
and use a mix of one-part grit to three-parts
peat-free John Innes No.3. Spreading a thin
layer of grit over the top of the compost
will help prevent the plant rotting, and
looks good too.
A general rule for auriculas is to protect
them from rain in winter and spring, and
from the sun in summer. They like
consistently moist soil so water when
the top few centimetres of soil feels
dry to the touch but avoid wetting
the leaves as this can encourage
fungal diseases.

‘Mister Silver
Laced’

✽ HELP IT THRIVE

If you want lots more flowers, give a high
potassium liquid feed (such as Levington
Tomorite, £5.99/1L, crocus.co.uk) every
two weeks from mid-February. Regularly
deadheading will also keep the flowers coming,
and remove any dead or loose leaves as you
see them to prevent rotting. Once it’s finished
flowering, move to a cooler shady part of the
garden and keep watered through the summer.

✽ HOW LONG WILL IT LAST?

Many auriculas will flower for three months
and, if you follow a few simple rules, they will
happily come back year-after-year. They are
completely hardy but do need protection from
winter rain, so pop them into a porch or on a
cool windowsill inside.
Your auricula will need repotting every few
years to rejuvenate the plant and this is best
done straight after flowering has finished.
Remove the plant from the pot, shake off the
compost and pop into fresh compost. If it’s
grown lots of new offsets (baby plants that look
like mini carrots) gently pull these away from
the plant and repot each one into it’s own pot of
gritty compost, for free plants.

The gold
-edged
of ‘Gold darkest burgun
crocus.co Lace’ (£6.99/9 dy flowers
.uk) are
larger th cm pot,
an many
.
ming
hine with the glea
Bring on the suns flowers of ‘Gleam’,
yellow and white rcyeverest.co.uk.
da
£4.50/9cm pot,

Did you know?

Pesky vine weevils love auriculas so if you spot any mouth-shaped
nibbles in the leaves, it’s time to act! You can use a critter killer
(Provade Ultimate Bug Killer, £5.99/1L, plantstoyourdoor.co.uk) or
throw the plant away in the black bin. We normally steer clear of any plants
that have a particular pest problem, but this little beauty is worth the risk.

82 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

If you fall in love
an
theatre-full, penp d want to grow a
rimulas.com has
put
together easy-gro
w collections.

Share your
upcycles with us
on Instagram or
Facebook - search
Modern Gardens
magazine

SIMPLE PROJECT

Bring me

Grace your outside space with a CHEERY WREATH that’ll
gradually fade to wonderfully weather-worn tones

PROJECT: R ACHEL HAWKIN S. P HOTO: R ICHA RD FAULKS

YOU WILL NEED
✽ Thin fabric, preferably cotton-based
✽ Wooden embroidery hoop: 6in,
£2.80 hawthornhandmade.com
✽ Scissors & wire
WHAT TO DO
1 Cut or tear strips of material around
40cm long and 2.5cm wide – you’ll need
about 60 for a 15cm hoop.
2 Fold each strip in half then fix around
the hoop, pulling both ends through the
loop created by the fold.
3 Once the hoop is covered, knot one end
of each strip to one end of the strip next
to it and continue around twice, forming
a knotted collar.
4 Trim the ends of the strips to tidy, and
add wire to hang if needed.

want the
u
o
y
if
s
r
o
s
is
c
s
l
TIP Use norma
don’t
u
o
y
if
s
r
a
e
h
s
g
in
ends to fray, pink

£2.80
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 83

&
GOT A QUESTION? We’ve got the

answer, whether it’s about a problem
plant, a tricky spot or a product you need

Q

WHY AREN’T THERE any worms in my
garden? I’m worried that means my soil
isn’t good for growing. Isaiah Bright, Cambs

COMPILED BY SIMON CANEY. P HOTOS: SHU TTERSTOCK, ALAM Y, GAP PHOTOS/ROBERT MABIC

We’re taking a guess that you have light free-draining soil?
You’ll find fewer worms because they’re not keen on these
conditions. This situation creates a vicious circle, though,
because the soil structure and organic matter content won’t
improve unless worms are present. And digging in organic
manure or compost won’t alter the conditions sufficiently
to encourage worms. Instead, lay compost as a thick
mulch over your soil. That will help to retain moisture
and a worm population should naturally build up over
the next couple of years. Do it now while you’ve got still
got lots of bare soil in your borders.

Deter cats using a Pest XT U/Sonic Batt Cat V2
Repeller, £19.99, suttons
.co.uk. Moggies will start
to give the area a wide bert
h after a week or so

Q

CAN YOU RECOMMEND a cat deterrent? My neighbour’s
many cats keep digging up my beds and while I don’t want to
upset my neighbour, I’ve had enough! Hugh Miller, London

We all love cats but there’s a limit to the fouling of freshly dug soil that any
gardener can tolerate! One solution is an electronic cat deterrent. These
are battery- or solar-powered devices that emit a high-pitched sound,
inaudible to humans but intolerable to cats. It does no harm – and your
neighbour will be none the wiser.

Q

WHAT’S THE BEST way to stop moss on
my new resin driveway? Julie Harris, Beds

Resin-bonded driveways make sense – they look attractive
and there’s no problem with loose gravel or chippings.
They’re often treated with a weedkiller before laying. But
moss will grow pretty much anywhere and loves a firm
surface – which is why Tarmac also attracts it. A pressurewash will simply redistribute the moss rather than kill it
but a standard chemical-free path and patio moss killer will
work effectively – do test-treat a small patch first though.

Q

I’VE GOT A TRICKY area of shade alongside a
fence – what no-faff plants will grow
well here? Miya Ingram, Surrey

Lots! It all depends just how shaded the area
really is so watch to see if it gets any sun at any
time of the day. Have a look at the soil too, as it’s
often drier and poorer next to a fence, so you may
need to add some compost. Among the perennials
that should succeed are euphorbias, heucheras,
dead-nettles, alchemillas, some geraniums,
pulmonarias (pictured right), hellebores, ferns
and bergenias. Not every species of these is
fully shade-tolerant so read the labels or
descriptions carefully and work out what
matches the level of shade you’ve got.
84 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

OVER TO YOU

Q

WHAT’S CAUSING THIS RING of dark
grass on our lawn? We don’t have a dog.
Diane Mahoney, Warwickshire
No pooch maybe, but you do have fairies! This ring is
caused by a toadstool called the fairy ring mushroom
and it grows outwards from a central spore. The fungal
threads on the inside of the ring exhaust the nutrients
in the soil, then die and produce a layer that deprives
the grass roots of moisture – and you get a ring of
enhanced growth of dark green grass around the outside. If grass
growth is severely affected, fertilise the area and spike the ground with a garden fork.

CONTACT US
Address: Modern Gardens, Bauer Media, Media House,
Lynch Wood, Peterborough PE2 6EA
Email: moderngardens@bauermedia.co.uk
EDITORIAL
Phone 01733 468000
Editor Emma Kendell
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Designers John Temple, Megan Spear
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Contributors Clare Walker, Fi Galley, Fiona Cumberpatch,
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Katie Masters, Melanie Whitehouse, Selina Lake
ADVERTISING
Phone 01733 366404/366411
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Printed by Walstead Bicester
Distributed by Frontline

Q

IT’S MY NEW YEAR’S resolution to grow veggies and
I’m going to use my front garden. How many raised beds
can I fit in the 7m x 4m space? Gerald Melendez, Norfolk
What a great idea – and raised beds can look very pretty as well as
productive, so they’ll do wonders for your kerb appeal. Four raised beds
would work well together. Run the beds lengthways at 6m per bed and
80cm wide, leaving a pathway of 40cm between each one for access from
both sides and wide enough for a wheelbarrow. This should give you ample
room to grow everything you want, along with easy access to work all
round the raised beds without stretching.

Q

WHY HAVE OUR hyacinths been so disappointing in recent
years? We always plant out our Christmas hyacinths once
they’ve finished flowering, but that often seems to be the end
of them! Todd Park, Cumbria
Many hyacinths bought in winter for Christmas blooming have been
heat-treated to ensure they flower at the critical time, rather than in their
natural spring slot. Try renewing with new bulbs next season, but buy normal
for-the-garden bulbs – not heat-treated ones – from a specialist nursery.

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JUST ASK! Want some design inspiration or got a garden question you’d
like answered? Get in touch, including a picture if you have one, by email at
moderngardens@bauermedia.co.uk

FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 85

Before

ASK THE
Each month we help sort out a reader’s
problem garden with clever advice from
the best experts in the garden design world

ergrown,
Cluttered, outdated and ov waste
ing to
this small space was go

Q How can I fill my small town garden with lots

of shrubs and flowers and have a choice of
spots to sit, without making it look even smaller?
I don’t want lots of containers as beds are easier
to keep watered. Josie Phillips, Kent
BEFORE GIVING YOUR SMALL
urban garden a makeover, it’s really
important to decide how you want
to use the space, so you can prioritise what to
include in it. Because if you don’t have room for
everything, it’s better to do one thing well than
to compromise on all counts.
Take inspiration from this 45m2 plot,
transformed by garden designer Karen McClure
(karenmcclure.co.uk). “All my client knew was
that she wanted it to be an urban retreat with
lots of planting interest,” says Karen.
“This client has a really elegant style and
personality and I wanted to reflect that in my
design,” she adds, “as well as it being a place she
could nurture her love of plants, and relax.”
The overall look was to be soft yet
contemporary, creating a cocooned effect to
screen out the overlooking houses.

A

✽ Use

the vertical space

Being a small area, the vertical space played
a big part in the design, so the first task was

to cut back the imposing conifer hedge that
dominated the majority of the space, and
paint the boundary fences black. “This meant
they receded into the background,” explains
Karen, “but at the same time created a striking
backdrop for the new plants.”
One fence was covered with Venetian-style
slatted wooden fencing to bring in an extra
contemporary vibe. In contrast, ground tones
were pale to make the space feel airy and
open, with large-format porcelain pavers and
matching composite decking planks laid on the
two levels created from the sloping plot.

✽ Be

bold with planting

The petite plot now has a variety of seating
areas to appreciate various vantage points.
And with very different views of the plot to
enjoy, the space feels much bigger than it is.
Bold architectural plants have been planted
in narrow beds and used to create layers of
upright structure. These include Fatsia japonica,
loved for its all-year-round structure, which

KAREN MCCLURE, GARDEN DESIGNER

“

Give your small garden boundary fencing
a new lease of life by painting it black to help
it merge into the background and provide a wonderful
backdrop for contrasting-colour plants.
86 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

”

helps to frame the seating areas, and Chinese
red birch tree ‘Fascination’, which adds delicate
height and draws the eye upward. Lower down,
astrantia ‘Shaggy’ provides a striking white
contrast to the black boundary and emerges
from the lush Hakonechloa macra and white
Melica grasses, bringing an extra touch of
elegance to the planting palette.

GOT A GARDEN PROBLEM?
Tell us all about it and send a picture of
your plot to moderngardens@bauermedia.
co.uk. We’ll select the best for expert
design inspiration!

GARDEN MAKEOVER

5

6

7

Birch ‘Fascination’

Astrantia ‘Shaggy’

Hakonechloa macra

2

Get the look
1 PAVING Silver Grey Porcelain Paving,
£66/m2 londonstone.co.uk
2 DECKING Millboard Decking Enhanced
Grain Brushed Basalt, £88.24/per plank
bossbuildingsupplies.co.uk
3 SLATTED FENCE Cedar Slatted Panel,
from £91.29/W30cm x H60cm ruby-group.co.uk
4 BISTRO DINING Läckö Table, £45,
Läckö Armchair, £55 both ikea.com
5 BIRCH TREE ‘FASCINATION’
£59.95/7L pot bowhayestrees.co.uk
6 ASTRANTIA ‘SHAGGY’ £5.95/1 bareroot
farmergracy.co.uk
7 HAKONECHLOA MACRA £9.99/9cm
pot crocus.co.uk

3
4

super-modern
Slatted fencing is stylish,
lush planting
and a great backdrop for

A maintenance-free steel
bistro set leaves
more time for enjoying th
e views

FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 87

FEATU RE: JU LES BARTON-BRECK. DESIG NER: KARENMCCLURE.CO.UK @KARENMCCLU REGARDENDESIGN # KMGD.
LANDSCAP ER: VERDELANDSCAPES.CO.U K. PH OTOS: PARKAANDBOOTSPH OTOGRAPHY.COM

1

”
n
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“I’m
Take a peek over the fence
at AMY WOLSEY’S plot
of rainbow veggies and fab
fluffy chooks in Norfolk

Catch up with Amy (and
Marm
on Instagram @chicksand alade)
veg
✽ I share my
garden with…

11 chickens: five fluffy Pekin bantams and six
cream legbars who lay beautiful greeny-blue
shelled eggs. I also have a springer spaniel
Oliver who prefers sleeping to lending a hand
with garden jobs. And my husband, who gets
roped into those garden jobs!

Meet Butter the Pekin bantam
Helping with the
squash harvest

✽ Our garden is… a colourful tapestry
of flowers and veg, with a few mischievous
chickens thrown in! When we moved in seven
years ago, our cottage garden was a jungle of
rubbish, rotten sheds and a mishmash of shrubs
and brambles. It was a really slow process to
clear and reset the garden before we could
decide what to do with the space. There was
a gravel patch at the bottom which, after a lot
of head scratching and some
cobbling together of scaffolding
boards, became a veg patch.
And it’s here I spend most of
my time. The rest of the garden

Revelling in all the
colour and texture

is wild and wildlife friendly, but I’m slowly
expanding and figuring out how I’d like it to
feel. I’ve recently added a mini kitchen garden
nearer the house for salads and herbs, and
sturdier raised beds and arches to the veg patch
to maximise growing room, and to create the
wonderful secret-garden feeling I love.

✽ My inspiration comes… from all

over! I’d like to think there’s a bit of old-school
country-house kitchen garden, but then I can be
pretty spontaneous with ideas! So it’s a garden
full of surprises.

✽ I use our garden for… relaxing and
resetting after busy days in my corporate job.
I have a very high-paced desk job, so I need to
wind down. I focus my mind on connecting with
the soil and find joy from harvesting veggies
and watching the chickens. The garden also

A successful bean-picking potter

Growing the
rainbow!
88 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

GARDEN MAKEOVER

Refusing to put the garden to
bed at night, solar lights keep
me outdoors for longer

I amaze myself with how
much I can pack into 8x6 ft
Gloria the greenhouse!

supplies all our veggies and of course there are
plenty of eggs from the hens too.

✽ My best buy is… solar lighting, as it lets

✽ My best garden moment was…

✽ My favourite plant is… the

✽ My favourite area is… the archways

✽ My latest project… is the front garden.
Let’s just say it’s currently neglected!

adding my wonderful raised beds. It brought
everything together and made me feel like I’d
really made the space my own. They keep the
veggies out of the reach of my chickens too!
leading into the veg patch. Not only does
growing vertically mean I make the most of
the space, it creates an amazing atmosphere
walking into the patch through a tunnel of
dangling beans and squash.

✽ My current obsession is… mixing

veg and flowers. Not only does it look fabulous,
it attracts bees and friendly pollinators too.
Some flowers like marigolds and nasturtiums
even act as very effective pest control.

me enjoy the garden as the evenings draw in.

tromboncino. This ridiculous snake-like squash
grows to a few feet long, hanging down from an
arch in weird and wonderful shapes.

✽ My top tip is… grow what you eat.

Open the salad and veg drawer in your fridge,
take a gook look and grow that!

✽ What our garden

means to me…

the garden represents
me in so many ways
and it’s become
my ‘thing’. Which
sounds a little
silly, but having
something you
truly care about
and can make
your own is really
special. It’s taught
me a lot about
patience and
resilience – you
can’t win against
Mother Nature!
And it’s shown me
how to find joy in the little things like sowing a
seed or picking fresh flowers.

Garden companion Oliver

One of my favourite
views is of the dahlias

Get in touch Tell us all about your garden by
emailing moderngardens@bauermedia.co.uk

Tromboncino are so
much fun to grow!

Adding more growing
space with arches
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 89

Garden
joy

SPECIAL

Get
Discover the wonder of Fibonacci hidden in your
garden, and prepare to be AWED AND AMAZED!

FEATU RE: KATIE MASTERS. PH OTOS: ALAMY, SH UTTERSTOCK

W

hat connects the plants in
your garden, your DNA and
the swirling clouds within a
hurricane? The answer is the
Fibonacci sequence: a surprising little number
pattern that crops up all over the natural
world. And once you know a little bit about
this numerical marvel, it’ll open up your
eyes to all sorts of astonishing stuff that’s
happening right outside your back door!
The amazing thing about the Fibonacci
sequence is that, when it’s drawn as a spiral,
its curve grows in a way that mirrors growth
patterns found in the natural world. You
can see clockwise and counter-clockwise
Fibonacci spirals in the centre of a sunflower
and the bracts of an artichoke. You can see
the spiral in the tightly packed leaves of a
monkey puzzle tree, as well as in the scales
of a pineapple. In fact, this pattern occurs in
more than 91% of today’s land plants, as well
as in other natural forms such as spiderwebs
– and yes, the shape of DNA, hurricane
clouds, and all over your outside space.

Fossil evidence suggests that this growth
pattern has evolved over millennia, the
leading theory being that this evolution
has occurred because growing at a steady
rate – in a spiral formation – allows plants
to optimise their use of space, their stability,
and the amount of sun that their leaves are
exposed to. So you’ll find the spiral in the
way branches of trees are positioned around
a trunk, or the way seeds are packed into
seedheads, or in the numbers of petals in each
layer of a daisy. This growth pattern allows
for the greatest number of seeds to form,
and for the greatest number of petals to be
compressed within a bud.
And it’s not just spirals. Go outside and
count whatever you see, and you’ll discover
the numbers in the Fibonacci sequence
popping up all over. Three petals in lilies,
irises and trilliums; five carpels in apples,
pears, and quinces; and if you count the
spirals on a pinecone you’ll often find that
they have eight clockwise spirals and 13
counter-clockwise ones.

NATURAL NUMBERS

THE GOLDEN RATIO

If you don’t like maths, don’t worry! The
Fibonacci sequence is insanely simple, given
that it results in such beauty in the natural
world. You start off with the two lowest
numbers and add them together: 0 + 1 = 1.
So, the sequence starts 0, 1, 1. Then add the
end two numbers in the sequence: 1 + 1 = 2.
That gives you 0, 1, 1, 2. And just keep adding
the end two numbers in the sequence to get
the next number: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34,
55, 89, 144, 233... and so it goes on forever.

Why are our eyes drawn to anything that
displays the Fibonnaci sequence? Easy,
says American professor Adrian Bejan. It’s
because of its relationship with the golden
ratio or phi, 1.61803. This is often called
‘the most beautiful number in the universe’,
while renaissance artists referred to it as the
divine proportion. What’s it got to do with
the Fibonacci sequence? Well, once you get
past the first 13 numbers in the Fibonnaci
sequence, if you divide any number in the

90 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

sequence by the one preceding it, you get
a number incredibly close to 1.61803. So
89 ÷ 55 = 1.618. And 144 ÷ 89 = 1.618. The
larger the pair of numbers, the closer it gets.
Our brain finds it easy to scan and
understand objects that reflect these
proportions and, because we can process
them quickly, they support us to be in a state
of flow that we find pleasurable. And that’s
why lots of artists use the golden ratio in their
work, as we'll naturally be drawn to it.

GARDEN DESIGN
And it’s not just artists, but garden designers,
who draw on Fibonacci because of this in-built
sense of harmony. In designer gardens you’ll
often see that plants are grouped in threes, or
fives, both Fibonacci numbers. The sequence
may also be used to determine the height of
plants that are placed together. Or the hard
landscaping may reflect the Fibonacci spiral.
In 2016, garden designer Nick Bailey went
full Fibonacci at the RHS Chelsea Flower
Show, creating Silver Gilt medal-winning
The Winton Beauty of Mathematics Garden.
Structured around a copper band in the shape
of the infinity symbol, it was packed full of
plants that evoke Fibonacci’s maths, from the
patterns in the pinecones of Pinus sylvestris
(Scot’s pine) to the spiralling flowers of
Leucospermum cordifolium.
Nature’s maths isn’t an exact science – life is
messy! – but it’s an intriguing one. And once
you start looking for the Fibonacci sequence
you’ll be awed by its simple complexity and
complex simplicity… step outside into your
garden and see what you can find!

OUTDOOR LIVING

➣
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 91

rson

Patio chat: meet
Leonardo Fibonacci
Leonardo Fibonacci was born in the Republic
of Pisa in the late 12th century, and worked
with his merchant father in Bugia, on the
coast of today’s Algeria. Bugia was governed
by a muslim empire that stretched across
southwestern Europe and North Africa,
where most people used the Indo-Arabic
numeral system. This was a much easier way
to do maths than the Roman numeral system
favoured by Europeans because it used a single
symbol for each whole number between zero
and nine. It also had a symbol for zero, which
the Roman numeral system lacked. Plus, it used
a place-value system – the position of each
number tells you how many units it represents,
so you know that the 9 in 973 is actually 900.
Fibonacci wrote a book called Liber Abaci, or
the Book of Calculation, to encourage people
to try the Indo-Arabic method. He included
a brainteaser in the book and the answer was
the pattern of numbers now known as the
Fibonacci sequence. Leonardo didn’t know
that the sequence crops up in nature, or the
link to the golden ratio. It wasn’t until 300 years
later that two German mathematicians, Simon
Jacobs and Johannes Kepler, started to unravel
the implications of the curious little pattern.

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AHEAD OF THE CURVE
Garden designer Nick Bailey used
the Fibonacci sequence to design
The Winton Beauty of Mathematics
Garden, and we’re feeling soothed
by its curves just looking at it!

6 Fibonacci spirals you can grow
FIDDLE-LEAF FIG

ROSE ICEBERG

ALOE POLYPHYLLA

To find the Fibonacci
spiral hidden in Ficus
lyrata, look at the way
the leaves spiral around
the stem of this handsome
houseplant. You’ll see the
pattern forming in the
space between each
leaf node. £9.99/
13cm pot, crocus.co.uk

Most rose petals are arranged in a Fibonacci
spiral, which you can see most
easily as the buds start to
unfurl. Easy-grow rose
Iceburg flowers all
summer with clusters
of pink buds opening
to white, so the spiral is
easy to spot. £25.99/4L
pot rhsplants.co.uk

The spiral aloe is an evergreen
succulent with incredible
spiralling rosettes of
leaves. It’s hardy
enough to survive
a UK winter, just
make sure it has
free-draining gritty
soil. £24.50/1L pot
bigplantnursery.co.uk

92 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

OUTDOOR LIVING

TRY THIS!

Pop begonia ‘Escargot’ on
your bedside table and wake
up to stunning spirals.
£19.99/3 jumbo plug plants,
dobies.co.uk
Even your lawn daisies
have Fibonacci spirals!

SUNFLOWER

CAULIFLOWER ‘VERONICA’

You can count
Fibonacci spirals in all
sorts of ways in a
sunflower centre. Aside from
the obvious clockwise spirals, look for
counter-clockwise patterns and spirals at a
shallower angle. Count these spirals and you’ll
usually find a pair of numbers from the sequence,
too! Sow whopper ‘Russian Giant’ in March,
£3.99/45 seeds thompson-morgan.com

A Fibonacci masterpiece! Sow seeds of
this cauli from March for showstopper
veggies from August. You’ll need to
cover it with protective
netting as the birds
will love it just
as much as
you! £3.99/
20 seeds,
suttons.co.uk

ECHINACEA
PURPUREA
Fibonacci spirals
show up in the
raised central
cones of this
stress-free
summer bloomer.
Leave the seedheads to
develop to enjoy the full pattern of spiky
seeds. £8.99/9cm pot crocus.co.uk
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 93

➣

OUTDOOR LIVING

Feel the calm

Fractals are patterns that repeat
at different scales, and plants with
Fibonacci spirals typically have them.
A NASA-funded project discovered
that humans find looking at fractals
incredibly soothing, gauged at
reducing stress by a staggering 60%.
So why not see if it works for you?
Spring is the perfect time to begin,
as many plants show a Fibonacci spiral
as they open. Find a fractal, pull up
a comfy chair and let your eyes rest
on the pattern. Allow your gaze to
become soft and unfocused, and spend
10 minutes letting this naturally destressing vision sink into your brain.

Dicksonia antarctica

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94 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

rare | unusual | exciting

Dazzling Dahlias
ENDLESS SUPPLY OF SUMPTUOUS BLOOMS
THROUGH SUMMER AND AUTUMN

BUY 15 FOR £15
OR 30 FOR £20

Vibrant, vivacious and exciting!

This dazzling mix of single and double blooms will liven up the garden with an
˘˘ʠ˖˔˧˖˛˜˚Є ˥˔ ˗˜˦ˣ ˔ʡʼ˗˘˔ ˙ ˥Ѓ ˜˚˧˛˘˕ ˥˗˘˥˛˘˥˘˧˛˘˜ ˨˖˘˥˘ˠ ˜ ˨˦ ˠ˜˚ ˘˧ ˚˘˧˛˘˥˔˗˦˔˜˧˛˧˛˘˚˘˧ ˘
˦˨ˠˠ˘˥˕˥˘˘˘ʡʴ˕˥˜ ˜˔˧˔˗˗˜˧˜ ˧ ˧˛˘˖˨˧˧˜˚˚˔˥˗˘˙ ˥˔˥ˠ˙˨ ˦ ˙˕
ˠ˦˛˜˖˛˜  ˔˦˧˨ˣ˧ ʤʣ˗˔˦˜˔˩˔˦˘ʡʴ ˧˘˥˔˧˜˩˘ "
˚˥ ˜ ˔˥˚˘ˣ ˧˦ ˧˛˘ˣ˔˧˜ ˜˙˦ˣ˔˖˘˜˦ ˜ˠ˜˧˘˗ʡ˝˥ ˜˚˧ ˔˛˘˜˚˛˧ ˙$ʣʠ%ʣ˖ˠ˔˗˦ˣ˥˘˔˗ ˙&ʣ˖ˠʡ˃˥˘˙˘˥ˠ ˜˦˧"˘ ʠ˗˥˔˜˘˗˦ ˜ 
˜˦˨ ˥ˣ˔˥˧˦˛˔˗˘ʡʸ˔˦˧ ˚˥ ˧˨˕˘˥ ˨˦ˣ˘˥˘˜˔ ˦˧˛˔˧˖˔˕˘ ˘˙˧˜˧˛˘˚˥ ˨˗ ˩˘˥˜˧˘˥˜˙˜˘ ʠ˗˥˔˜˘˗˦ ˜ ʡ
ˌ ˨˥˕˔˥˘˥ ˧˦˜ ˕˘˗˘ ˜˩˘˥˘˗˜ˀ˔˥˖˛˜˧˛˔˖ ˣ ˙ ˨˥ ˔˧˘˦˧˖˔˧˔ ˚˨˘"˜˙ ˨ ˨ ˗ˣ˥˘˙˘˥˧ ˥˘˖˘˜˩˘˔˖˔˧˔ ˚˨˘˦ ˘˥
˥˔˥˘ ˧ˣ˨˥˖˛˔˦˜˚˧ ˗˔"ˣ ˘˔˦˘˖˔ ʣʤʦ,&ʨ&ʥ%%%˙ ˥ ˨˥˖ ˣ ˥˥˘ˤ˨˘˦˧  ˜˘ʡʴ ˣ ˔˧˦ˣ˨˥˖˛˔˦˘˗˔˥˘˖ ˩˘˥˘˗˕ ˨˥ˁ 
˄˨˜˕˕ ˘˝˨˔˥˔˧˘˘ʡ

IT’S EASY TO ORDER
ONLINE:
hayloft.co.uk

QUOTE HA MG

ORDER LINE:
0333 358 2006

POST :
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Please Send

Item Code

Price

DAHLIA × 15

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£15

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BRDM30-MG0224

£20

DAHLIA × 45

BRDM45-MG0224

£25

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OVER TO YOU

Growing, making, upcycling or SIMPLY ENJOYING.
We love to see what you’re up to in your gardens

Our makeover
of the month!
*FOR FULL TERMS AND CONDITION S, VI S I T
WWW.BAUERLEGAL.CO.UK/COMPETI T I O N-T E R MS.HT ML

My house was a newbuild with a very small unattractive patio directly
outside the patio doors and the rest laid mostly to chippings, on a slight
incline, with another quite-ugly patio further up the garden on which
there was a table and chairs. It now has the defined zones I wanted for
relaxing, eating and chilling, the sections are level and I have plenty of
room for garden furniture. The garden has the sun on it for most of
the day and the lounging section closest to the house is a real suntrap,
which I love. The daybed right at the end of the garden is lovely and a
very worthwhile investment – it's known as the onion due to its shape!
Tracey Powell, email

After

YOUR PRIZE

✽ Congratulations to Tracey for sending
us her fab makeover. She receives a Sophie
Conran for Burgon & Ball Seed Organiser,
worth £25.99 from burgonandball.com

Before

Ill-favoured chippings
and slopes just had to go

Low-maintenance and
looking good all year round!

Have you transformed a corner of your
plot from lacklustre to lovely?
Or turned a dull old item into a fab
garden feature? Send us a before and after
photo and you could be the winner next month!

Set the stage
Our dismal side return
was just a dumping
ground. We had the
walls painted, and two
waterbutts and an
outside plug added.
We now use it for extra
seating when entertaining
and a karaoke stage!
Carol Urwin, email

96 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

Sitting under the walnut tree is magical at
night. Rachel Greengrass-Yates, Facebook

O
N M
SA AR
LE C
FE H I
BR SS
UA UE
RY
14

In next month’s issue...

P HOTOS: ALAMY, EMMA KENDELL, G AP PH OTOS,
SHU TTERSTOCK, SU PERSTOCK

me wildlife
Stylish ideas to welco
ce
into your outside spa

rn
Celebrate spring’s retu
with this zing y tipple

Add a petite pond
oks
with designer good lo

t
Beautiful blooms tha
bees
feed birds as well as

el
Make a border bee hot
from a wooden sleeper

PLUS, SOW SWEET PEAS, MAKE DANDELION CUPCAKES,
ENJOY THE DAWN CHORUS, GROW XMAS SPROUTS, & MORE!

OVER TO YOU

Fancy seeing

SHARE
YOUR

YOUR
GARDEN

PLOT!

right here?

TOP PH OTO: SHUTTERSTOCK

Show off your outdoor living space in
MODERN GARDENS magazine!
If you love your outside space, we’d love to hear from
you! Whether your plot is big or bijou, designer
or DIY, perfect or a bit higgledy-piggledy, share
your modern garden with us and let us know how
it reflects your life and loves.
Have you tailored your garden to fit your
lifestyle? Perhaps you love to travel or have a
busy career so your outside space needs to be low
maintenance. Maybe you’ve got a bloom-chewing
dog and grow everything in raised beds, or is your
outside bar the hub of your party plot? Does your
garden reflect your personality – a bold, dynamic
space for entertaining, or a calm, soothing haven
for escaping? Or perhaps your space showcases
your sense of style, whether that’s sleek straight
lines or billows of cottagecore blooms.
Whatever! We’re looking forward to seeing your
lovely gardens!

Karen Per
err
rrin'
n s newbu
with
ith ch
chicic Scandi stildylingagrden

lovely spot
Jane Price's blooming tea
oon
ern
aft
for

HOW TO GET IN TOUCH
Please email a few photos of your garden to moderngardens@bauermedia.co.uk
along with your name, location and a few sentences telling us why you love your
garden,
itSforJ Aand
9
8 M O Dwhat
E R N you
G A Ruse
DEN
N U why
A R Y it’
2s0just
2 1 right for you.

Kelly Hawor
productive athll's pretty and
otment plot

OVER TO YOU

A potter with a cuppa
Simple
pleasures

Spring seed sowing

Join KATE DARDIS for a cuppa on a rickety old
bench in her productive garden in Greater London
When I moved into this house
12 years ago, you almost couldn’t
see the garden for brambles. I spent
hours upon hours cutting them back, wanting
to create a kitchen garden. And when I added
the raised beds I got an immediate sense of
satisfaction. I’m lucky to have a tiny allotment
now but, for most of my time here, the garden
has provided for my daughter and I.
I mix ornamentals in with the edibles, with
dahlias, stocks and poppies sitting alongside
chard, peppers and chickpeas. I grow a lot
of things vertically as well to make the most of
the space, and I love seeing tomatoes tumbling
through obelisks and pumpkins climbing over
arches. There’s nothing better than popping out
on a sunny day and grabbing your lunch, crispy
lettuces, cucumber and tomatoes still warm
from the sun, and a bunch of flowers for the
mantle while you’re at it!
I inherited a lot of mature plants in among
all those brambles. I have a beautiful old elder
tree from which I forage flowers for syrup, and a
huge bay tree that still has the original price tag

saved me. At first it
was simply just being in
the garden – I’d throw
down a blanket and
lie there with my eyes
closed, listening to the
trees whispering in the
breeze. Then I sowed
a few seeds and when
they germinated I felt a
spark. I’d look forward
to seeing them grow
into fully-fledged
plants, and I saw beauty again. I think that’s
where my passion for growing was reignited,
I feel so calm when I’m working the land, and
humbled to be so connected to nature.
It’s important to me that I get a five-minute
wander around the garden with a cup of tea
every day, seeing what’s new, taking in the
perfume of the roses and maybe even doing a
bit of deadheading as I go. It re-energises me.
I’ll often plonk myself down on the rickety old
bench at my potting table. It’s a lovely sunny

A garden doesn’t have to be perfect - it just
needs to be full of things you love
Homegrown tulips

Colourful crops

of 50p attached to the trunk! I’ve added a silver
birch and self-pollinating pear as I really feel
trees add a special dimension to small gardens.
The overall effect is so calming, which is what I
need from a garden.
I’ve been living with generalised anxiety and
panic disorder for quite some time now and of
all the things I’ve tried, it’s gardening that helps
me the most. When I feel that tell-tale bubbling
in my chest, I pop out to do half-an-hour of
weeding or potting on and it quietens my mind.
I think more clearly with my hands in the soil.
And I’ll hide out in my little zippy greenhouse
when things get a bit much.
A few years ago I had a complete mental
breakdown. I hadn’t realised how overwhelmed
with depression I had become and I was in a
dark place. It sounds cliché but plants genuinely

spot at the top of the garden to watch the birds
darting to and from the feeders. Sometimes I
grab a cushion and listen to a podcast or read
a book, other times I’ll sit and sketch. I adore it
when one of the cats keeps me company.
Of course, the garden is also a space for my
daughter so it’s dotted with hula hoops and
a trampoline, but it makes her happy so who
am I to complain? She is chief watering officer
and loves to cut little posies of sweet peas and
cosmos for her bedroom, which is very sweet.
She also has a fairy garden and nature mobiles
made from sticks and pinecones – but then I
have a pink shed and flamingo statues!
A garden doesn’t have to be perfect
– it just needs to be full of things you
love, and make you happy.
✽ See more of Kate’s garden @pumpkins_etc
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 99

OVER TO YOU

Love your...

WINTER ACONITES

FEATURE: CLARE WALKER. PHOTO: SH UTTERSTOCK

J

ust as we’re tiring of winter, plucky
winter aconite delivers a much-needed
golden ray of sunshine to our sleepy
gardens. Returning year-after-year and
often referred to as the harbingers of spring,
it’s a truly uplifting sight to see their buttercuplike flowers glowing in the sunlight above ruffs
of bright green leaves, jostling for attention
with the snowdrops. And for any passing
pollinators that venture out before spring is in
full swing, they’re an especially welcome sight.
Native to parts of southern and eastern
Europe, it was first introduced to Britain
as a garden plant in 1596. A favourite
with England’s most famous landscape
architect Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown in
the 18th century, its popularity meant
it eventually escaped into the wild,
first reported in East Suffolk in
1838 by English botanist Sir
William Jackson Hooker.
Its Latin name, Eranthis
hyemalis, expresses its joyful essence,
translating as ‘spring flower in winter’.
Its common name is less clear, as winter
aconite is not an aconite at all but
alludes to its aconitum-like leaves, a
characteristic by which plants were classified
in the 16th century. But both the true aconitum
– a highly toxic plant that was used to poison
wolves in the Middle Ages – and this little
lovely belong to the buttercup family, which
are all toxic (yes, even those cute common
buttercups!). All parts of winter aconites are
toxic, especially the rhizomes, and eating a
lot will cause irreparable damage. And while
animals will naturally avoid them and it’s very
improbable that veg-dodging children will
bother, it’s best to be forewarned. Who knew
this sweet little bloom with its faint whispers of
spring hope had such a sinister side?!

100 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

Share your
aconites on our
Instagram or
Facebook page

OVER TO YOU

PAWS

WHISKERS...

...FINS AND FEATHERS. We love to

see your pets enjoying your gardens too!
Home sweet home
Ted loves exploring and
creeping through all of the
plants. I have a nice area
with catmint, valerian and
grasses for my cats. They have
lots of shady areas including
their summerhouse and
trees for them to climb and
scramble through. When I’m
pruning, they enjoy chasing
the off-cuts when I throw
them. Jo Allsop, Facebook

My silver-blue echinops is
entertaining lots of beautiful bees.
Rachel Greengrass, Facebook
PRIZE PET!

This is my seven-year-old
Ben with Hettie his hen.
Hettie is very naughty and
often comes in through
the cat flap to steal the cat’s
food! Lucy Travell, email

Olly the eight-year-old lab finished
his lunch and decided to act as border
control while I worked in the garden.
Debbie Joyce, email

COMPILED BY ANGELA KENNY

YOUR PRIZE!

SIT TIGHT
Kitty seems to like to dig out some of the
plants in our pots, and then sit on any
remaining ones! Bob Morrison, email

Here’s Jeffrey being spoiled with
a catmint plant just for him.
Joanna Lees, Facebook

✽ Olly wins a
Personalised
Dog Lead Hook,
worth £18 from
oakdenedesigns.com
For a chance of
winning next month,
post your photo to facebook.com/
moderngardensmagazine or email
moderngardens@bauermedia.co.uk
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 101

*FOR FU LL TERM S AND CONDITIONS, V ISIT
WWW.BAUERLEGAL.CO.U K/COMPETITION-TERM S. HTML

Hen friend

Planting SOOTHING SPHERES of leafy greens is an
easy-do update that’ll fill your garden with calming vibes

Garden
joy

PHOTO: GAP PHOTOS/A NNIE GR EEN-A RM YTAGE.
DESIGNER S: HA RRY & DAVID RICH.
S PONSOR : CLOUDY BAY & BORD NA MONA

SPECIAL

F

oliage spheres are a firm favourite
with garden designers because they
not only look pretty swish, they add a
super-soothing element to any design.
The leafy balls act in the same way that the
fullstops in this text do, stopping you for
a moment and encouraging you to pause
and take a breath, putting everything else
into order and creating sense and structure.
As you look round a garden, your gaze will
naturally stop on a foliage sphere, because
both the colour and the shape are so restful
for your eyes and mind. You’ll inhale, relax,
then carry on your visual journey. Ahh!
And it’s high time these balls of loveliness
stopped being the preserve of designer

1 02 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

gardens. Demanding little space, expertise or
time, we call all to enjoy these striking plants!
There are all sorts of options from topiary
balls you need to keep clipped into shape,
to plants that naturally grow in a rounded
form. And you can use them in all sorts of
ways to suit all types of plots, from containers
and courtyards to contemporary spaces.
Invaluable in winter for their enduring
structure, they look magical kissed by frost
or cloaked in snow. And in summer, they’re
solid green anchors around which flamboyant
blooms and swooshing grasses can dance.
Fancy one or two, or even three? February
is a great time to plant them because during
milder spells the roots will begin to slowly

grow, so come spring they’ll be settled in and
ready for more rapid growth.
And don’t worry for a second that you’ll
be saddled with all the hassles of beautiful
but bedeviled box (Buxus sempervirens)
balls. Long used in garden design and still
readily available in garden centres, this plant
is increasingly affected by box blight, a fungal
disease that causes brown leaves and bare
patches, and box tree caterpillar, which can
ravage a plant in days. Both problems can be
kept under control but in the interests of
low-maintenance sustainable gardening, we
think it’s time to think outside of the box
(sorry!) with some fab alternatives. So which
will work best in your garden?

BIG PROJECT

TRY THIS!

YEW
English yew (Taxus baccata) is our go-to
plant for creating topiary as its dark green
needle-like foliage forms dense growth and
copes well with regular trimming. Yew is very
undemanding, adaptable and fairly diseaseresistant, and will last for hundreds of years.
Thriving in a wide range of soil types and
conditions, it’s particularly useful if you have
a shadier garden. Buy them ready-trained
or train them yourself from scratch – it will
take a few years to become a dense ball, but
it will save you money, especially if you’re
buying a few.

F EATUR E: CLAR E WAL KER. PHOTOS: GAP PHOTOS/
A N NAI CK GUITTENY/HEATHER EDWARDS

Add twinkle to your topiary
with the 60 Warm White LED
Topiary Outdoor Battery Net
Light, £12.99, lights4fun.co.uk

£59.9
9/

30-3
hope 5cm ball
sg rov
i
enur n 10L po
t,
serie
s.co.u
k

➣
FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 103

DELAVAY PRIVET
Small glossy dark green leaves make
this is a top choice for ship-shape
balls in a smaller garden. You can
buy Ligustrum delavayanum as
a lollipop tree too, with a ball of
leaves atop a single slim trunk. It’ll
thrive in a wide range of soils but
doesn’t like to be waterlogged and,
once established, won’t complain
during a dry summer. As it grows
quite slowly, it’s best to invest in a
plant that has already been trained
into a ball.

£140
/

30-4
0
para cm ball i
mou
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ntpla 15L pot
,
nts.c
o.uk

re than
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g
in
m
im
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TIP
acterial
b
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one plan
f y our
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spreading
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snips to p

HEBE ‘EMERALD GEM’
This plant naturally grows into a ball. Also
known as ‘Green Globe’, the tiny bright green
leaves are so tightly packed, it looks like it’s
been clipped. Growing to around 40cm, it only
needs a quick trim in mid-spring to tidy up any
stray leaves, so it’s ideal if you’re short on time.

£10.7
9/

15/2
hope 5cm plan
sg rov
t
enur in 2L pot
serie
,
s.co.u
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104 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

£50/

30-4
0
para cm plant
i
mou
n t p l a n 10L po
t,
nts.c
o.uk

WHITE CEDAR ‘DANICA’
Thuja occidentalis come in all shapes and sizes but
‘Danica’ naturally forms a globe shape of around
60cm, taking the work out of creating the perfect
ball! The coniferous foliage is vibrant green, taking
on a bronze flush in colder temperatures. And
it’s tough enough to survive in the coldest UK
garden. It’s a slow grower so you’ll need to buy
a larger plant for instant impact.

BIG PROJECT

Add a
matching
accent

Large Light
Up Orb, £39.50
marksandspencer.com

Habitat
Metal Sphere
Ball, £23.45/3
argos.co.uk
Primrose 10cm
Copper Effect
Stainless Steel
Gazing Globe,
£17.99 diy.com

29cm Terrastyle
Grey Sphere
Garden Ornament,
£35 diy.com

Amelex 67
Decorative Sun Ball,
£29.95 amazon.co.uk

Short on time?
When choosing which plant to buy,
check how fast they grow as vigorous
growers mean you might be clipping
them every few weeks. Oleaster
‘Compacta’ (Elaeagnus submacrophylla)
and garden privet (Ligustrum
ovalifolium) are both sold as foliage
spheres but they’re speedy growers
that entail too much faff for us!

£22/

PITTOSPORUM ‘TOM THUMB’
Pittosporum naturally grow into a round bush
and ‘Tom Thumb’ is just a little bit different
with its sumptuous dark purple ovalshaped leaves and contrasting bright
green foliage in spring. With dense and
slow growth, it’s perfect for topiary
balls – simply trim any unruly stems
in spring. It will grow to about
1m and will appreciate a
sunny spot with welldrained soil but will
need protecting if
temperatures
dip below -8°C.

25cm
wood plant in
1
ham
s p l a n 0L pot ,
ts.co.u
k

£42.9
9/
20cm

bal
crocu l in 2L po
t,
s.co.u
k

JAPANESE HOLLY
Ilex crenata most closely
resembles box, if that’s the look
you’re after, though it won’t give
you such dense balls. It’s lowmaintenance and slow-growing, is
easily clipped into shape and will
grow in full shade. It’s an especially
hardy plant so it’s a great option
for more exposed or northerly
gardens. Widely available, it’s one
of the most affordable.

GREEN OLIVE
Hailing from the Mediterranean, it’s easy
to mistake Phillyrea angustifolia for an
olive with its long and narrow leathery
dark green leaves. If you have a warm
sunny garden with a Mediterranean
vibe, then this is the plant for you. It’s
a tough cookie that’s tolerant of salty
air, poor soils and heat, but won’t
take kindly to harsh drying winter
winds. Avoid growing in areas
where ash dieback is a problem
too, as it could be affected.
Ready-made balls are expensive
but training your own is great
fun and a much cheaper
option (£11.99/2L pot,
hopesgrovenurseries.co.uk).

£150
/

40-5
prov 0cm ball
ende
rnur in 18L po
t
serie
s.co.u ,
k
FEBRUARY 2024

➣
M O D E R N G A R D E N S 10 5

All you need to know!
Plant chosen, it’s time to get your garden
upgraded! Most topiary is container-grown
and can be planted throughout the year, but
the ideal time is from November to April. If
the ground is frozen or waterlogged when your
plants arrive, though, keep them outside in a
sheltered frost-free spot and water just enough
to keep the soil moist.
PUTTING IT IN THE GROUND?
Dig a square hole with a diameter twice the size
of the pot and just as deep. Loosen the soil at
the bottom of the hole with a garden fork, as this
will encourage the roots to grow downwards.
If your soil is heavy clay, dig the hole about a
third deeper and put a layer of horticultural grit
followed by a layer of soil into the hole before
planting, for better drainage.
After thoroughly watering it, remove the
plant from its pot and gently tease out the roots
from the sides and base. Place in the hole, with
the top of the rootball at the same level as the
surrounding ground and your plant straight. Fill
all around with a 50/50 mixture of garden soil
and peat-free multipurpose compost, and firm.
Water with about half a watering can to
eliminate any air pockets and help the roots
make good contact with the soil. Finally, add
a 5cm layer of any mulch (compost is fine!)
around the base of the plant, avoiding the main
stem, to suppress weeds, protect from frost and
keep the moisture in.
PLANTING IN A CONTAINER?
Choose a planter about 5cm bigger than the
pot it arrives in, with drainage holes, and put a
layer of gravel in the bottom. Position the plant
so the rootball is 5cm below the top of the pot
and gradually add and firm compost around the
sides. It’s best to use loam-based John Innes
No.3 (John Innes Peat-Free No.3 Mature Plant
Compost, £7.99/28L, marshallsgarden.com) as it
doesn’t dry out as quickly as soil-less composts
and keeps a plant happy for years with only an
annual feed. Water until liquid comes out of
the drainage holes, then add a layer of mulch to
keep in the moisture.
HOW OFTEN SHOULD I WATER?
Planting in winter means that plants may not
need as much day-to-day care initially, so only
water if it’s a particularly dry spell. From around
mid-March until the end of September, water
two to three times a week if they’re in the
ground and daily if in pots.
Increase or decrease according to the
weather but, if you’re unsure, just dig down a
little into the soil to check how moist it is under
the surface. After two years, the plants will
be more established and will require far less
watering in the ground but just as much in a pot.
HOW DO I SHAPE IT?
Balls are straightforward to shape by eye, just
take it slowly. Start by cutting a cross into the
top and then work round the sides in vertical
quarters. Keep on moving around the ball as
you’re cutting, and regularly take a step back
106 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

to evaluate your progress, assessing the shape
from all angles. With practice, it’s a doddle!
To make it easier, make a simple semi-circular
template from cardboard to the required
diameter, or twist some galvanised garden wire
into a circular shape, then move this over the
plant as a guide as you prune. If you’ve got
several matching balls, this really helps achieve
a uniform size.
WHEN SHOULD I CLIP MY BALLS?
Once a year is often enough and is usually best
done around mid-June, once the spring growth
has toughened up. If your plant needs a second
trim, then late August is a good time. More

vigorous varieties may need to be trimmed
throughout the summer to keep them tidy. Aim
to do your trimming on cloudy and overcast
days to prevent damage to the plants.
DO I NEED TO FEED?
Pot-grown balls will need feeding and the most
convenient method is to give them an annual
feed in spring using slow-release fertiliser
granules such as Miracle-Gro Slow Release
All Purpose Plant Food (£5.99/900g,
charlies.co.uk). It’s not usually necessary to feed
spheres grown in the ground but you can always
give them a little boost if you want to, using a
sprinkling of the same food.

BIG PROJECT

What if…

✽ How will my ball get bigger if
I keep on clipping it?
If you want to increase the size of
your ball, leave a few centimetres
of new growth when trimming. Once
it’s reached the size you want, trim all
the new growth each year.
✽ How long will it take to train
a ball from scratch?
Depending on the variety, it will be a
couple of years before it starts taking
shape. The trick is to clip it little and
often as that’ll encourage growth, so
holes will fill out and the sphere will take
shape a lot faster.
✽ What if I make a mistake when
clipping?
It’ll grow out, don’t worry! And you’ll
soon get better with practice.

WHICH SNIPS?
✽ Jakoti Hand Shears

Made from high-quality carbon steel,
the blades are self-sharpening
and are designed to
create less stress
on your hands. Great for all
balls, they’ll give a smart finish.
£40 handshears.co.uk

✽ Burgon & Ball Topiary Hedge Shear
Lightweight two-handed shears are fab
for more established larger balls as they
get the job done more quickly.
If you want a more precise
finish, use the singlehanded topiary shears
for a final tidy. £42.99
webbsdirect.co.uk

✽ Bosch Cordless EasyShear

This will save time and still offer
quick and precise cutting.
The battery lasts for up to 40
minutes, which is plenty of time
to shave a few balls. £46.99
machinemart.co.uk

✽ Topiary Pruning Scissors

These are handy to quickly snip any
wayward leaves or stems, and perfect
for cutting tender new growth.
£17.50 toptopiary.co.uk

✽ Darlac Expert

Topiary Shear
A trad design but ultrasmooth to use, these are
great for smaller balls as
they’ll give a very precise finish.
£26.99 darlac.com

✽ Gardena Comfort

Boxwood Secateurs
Lightweight with shockabsorbing handles, these shears
are designed with user comfort in
mind. Perfect for all but really big
balls. £19.99 charlies.co.uk

A Topiary Trimming Mat
makes clean-up easy.
£24.50, bloomling.uk

Keep tools
razorsharp for
the tidiest trim.
Spear & Jackson
Blade Sharpener, £9.54
primetools.co.uk

✽ Wolf-Garten

HSB Box Tree Shear
Specially designed for
trimming topiary plants, these
curved double-edged short
blades will make light work
of multiple big balls. £36.98
mowerexpress.co.uk

FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 107

Health-giving

GOOSEBERRIES
Boost your wellbeing with a bush of
VITAMIN SUPPLEMENT berries!

W

hen was the last time you ate
a gooseberry? Because you
seriously need to get eating these
incredible little green balls of
goodness! The humble goosegog is an amazing
powerhouse of body-enriching nourishment.
The fruit contains large amounts of vitamin C
plus a wide range of other vitamins and good
amounts of copper and manganese (essential
for bone health), and are high in fibre.
They also boast plenty of polyphenols, which
studies suggest help protect against various
diseases and stabilise blood pressure. They’ve
been shown to lower the risk of cardiovascular
disease, provide anti-inflammatory properties,
protect against oxidative stress/free radicals in
the body and even help to improve memory.
If you grow your own, you’ll be able to enjoy
soft sweet fruit rather than those bitter bullets
you see in the shops that are picked before their
full taste, flavour and juiciness have developed.
Once established, your plant will produce
delicious crops every summer for at least 10
to 12 years. What’s more, they’re easy to grow,
crop well in sun or light shade in all but the most
inhospitable soils, and they are self-pollinating
so you only need one plant. And just one

gooseberry bush can give you up to 5kg of
lovely fruit every year.
There are traditionally two types. Dessert
varieties produce sweet tangy berries that can
be eaten straight off the bush (you can also
pick these before they’re fully ripened to cook),
while culinary varieties are better for making
pies, crumbles, fools, jams and sauces. However,
those clever plant breeders have created
varieties that are good for both, if you can’t
decide. You can now also buy yellow and red
berries and, while some varieties have thorns,
others are virtually spine-free.
Pruning is straightforward. In July or August,
cut back the current year’s growth to two or
three leaves from their base, and remove any
thin stems. To save yourself a job, do this while
harvesting the fruit – you can take a cut fruitladen stem indoors and do the picking later!
Bushes grow to 1-1.5m high and wide but you
can buy space-saving standards in a lollipop
shape (try pomonafruits.co.uk) which look great
in a pot with room beneath to grow something
else. If you want to grow a few, try singlestemmed cordons planted close together, which
take up hardly any room. It’s also easy to train
stems into a flat fan against a wall or fence.

OUR FAVOURITES TO TRY

Your
garden
larder

FEATU RE: GEOFF H ODGE. P HOTOS: SHU TTERSTOCK, GAP PH OTOS/JONATHAN BUCKLEY

✽ ‘Careless’ is great for

culinary use as it has heavy
crops of large smooth
berries with a crisp flavour
ripening by mid-July. Green
when young, they mature
to yellow. £9.99/2-3L pot
jacksonsnurseries.co.uk
✽ ‘Hinnonmaki Red’ is a
dessert/culinary variety
bearing heavy crops of
medium-sized dark red berries
from mid-July with a sweet
tangy flavour. £8.99/bareroot
marshallsgarden.com
✽ ‘Captivator’ is a new dessert/
culinary variety producing
large sweet red fruit from late
July that are delicious eaten
fresh. Virtually spine free.
£13.50 pomonafruits.co.uk

‘Careless’

108 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

EASY IDEAS

TRY THIS!

Add gooseberries to a
Victoria sponge mix to
make a fun polka-dot cake!

HOW TO GROW

Grow your gooseberry bush in a pot in
a sunny spot.
YOU WILL NEED
✽ Gooseberry plant
✽ Bucket of water
✽ Crocks or large flat stones
✽ Terracotta pot: 35cm Laleh
Terracotta Plant Pot, £12.84 diy.com
✽ Multipurpose compost with added
John Innes: Westland, £8/50L
wickes.co.uk
✽ Watering can
✽ Controlled-release plant food:
Miracle-Gro Premium Rose Shrub
Continuous Release Plant Food,
£9/900g homebase.co.uk

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WHAT TO DO
1 Soak the plant’s roots in a bucket of
water for 15-20 mins before planting.
2 Place stones or crocks over the
drainage holes in the pot to prevent
compost blocking them.
3 Start filling the terracotta pot with
compost, lightly firming as you go, until
when you place the plant’s plastic pot on
it, its top is 2-2.5cm below the rim.
4 Remove the plant pot and unravel any
long roots going around the rootball,
stand on the compost and fill around
with more compost, firming as you go to
cover the rootball.
5 Water with a full can.
6 Water thoroughly whenever the
compost starts to dry out. Feed every
spring with a controlled-release fertiliser
then mulch around the top of the plant
with a layer of compost.

FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 10 9

ENJOY 24 FREE*

LAVENDER
PLANTS
These easy-grow mood-boosters will fill
your garden with uplifting colour and
SOOTHING SCENT this summer

W

hether spilling over the edge of a pot
or onto paths or lawn edges from
borders, this fab collection of English
lavenders is a must-have for your
modern plot. Fast-growing and easy-going, they
can be planted outdoors at any time once the
soil has warmed up, in a spot in full sun and with
well-drained soil. Just be sure to position
them wherever you can appreciate their
stress-easing aroma.
Your 24 FREE* plug plants,
worth £17.98, will include Lavender
angustifolia ‘Hidcote’, which has

compact, bushy, grey-green foliage
and dense dark violet flowers on upright
stems, and ‘Munstead’, with mid-green
leaves and classic lavender-blue flowers.
Why not bring the joy indoors and add
bunches of dried lavender to a vase or use it to
stuff sachets to add fragrance to wardrobes? To dry
in bunches, cut the lavender, leaving long stems of
about 20cm. Secure with an elastic band and hang
upside down to dry in a warm place for about two
weeks. You can tell when it’s ready because it will feel
slightly brittle and will crumble between your fingers.
Remove the rubber band and arrange as you like.
✽ To claim your free lavender plants, product code
KB8459FFP, see below.

‘Munstead’

HOW TO ORDER
✽ GO ONLINE

thompson-morgan.com/TM_MGR47
*Postage is £5.95 per order (not per item)
T&Cs Orders despatched from March 2024 onwards and will be acknowledged with a dispatch date in
writing, by letter or email. If, in the event of unprecedented demand this offer is oversubscribed, we reserve
the right to send suitable substitutes. Your contract for supply of goods is with Thompson & Morgan, Poplar
Lane, Ipswich, IP8 3BU. Terms & Conditions available upon request. All offers are subject to availability.
Images for illustration purposes only. Savings are based on multiples of the cheapest pack sizes. Regretfully we
are unable to ship live plants to the following postcode areas: HS, IV41-IV56, KW15-KW17, PA34, PA41-48,
PA60-PA78, PA80, PH40-PH44, TR21-TR24, ZE1-ZE3. We are unable to dispatch seeds or plants to EU
countries and Northern Ireland. Offer closes February 29 2024.

110 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

READER OFFER

More great deals...

*

FREE

Seduce your senses with fiery flowers

lavender

SAVE
£12.97

Geum ‘Mrs J Bradshaw’ will turn
up the heat in your garden this
summer with its flame-red blooms on
thin wiry stems. Lay back on your
sunlounger and let your senses be seduced
by the sight and sounds they’ll bring to
your garden. Enjoy the eye-catching colour
and plenty of pollen-lover fluttering. Keep
them blooming for longer with a spot of
lazy glass-of-wine-in-hand deadheading!
Height & Spread 60cm. To order*:
✽ 12 plugs for £9.99, save £3.99, code
KC1052
✽ 24 plugs for £14.99, save £12.97, product
code KC1053

plants worth

£17.98

Hit the spot with feel-good foxgloves

SAVE
£6.99

A carefree cottagecore
fave, Foxglove
‘Dalmation Mixed’ will
pack your outdoor living space
with colour from May through
to July. Plant your bargain
additions, which will be
despatched from March, in sun
or semi-shade in borders or
containers where they’ll happily
scatter their seeds about for
lots more flowers year after
year. Height 50cm Spread
40cm. To order*:
✽ 12 plug plants for £9.99, save
£2, product quote KB9548
✽ 24 plug plants for £16.99,
save £6.99, product quote
KB7909

‘Hidcote’

PHOTO: SHU TTERSTOCK

Plant a punchy pink pick-me-up

SAVE
£2.99

With slender, deep
rose-pink petals that
burst outwards like
sunrays before relaxing downwards
as they age into a classic
shuttlecock shape, these
coneflowers, Echinacea ‘Nectar
Pink’, will brighten up summer
days from July to September.
Grow them in a sunny or semishaded position in moist, welldrained soil. Height 85cm Spread
45cm. To order*:
✽ 12 plug plants for £8.99, product
code KB9533
✽ 24 plug plants for £14.99, save
£2.99, product code KB9534

FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 111

CLAIM YOUR

FREE PEONY
*

You’ll get THREE TIDY BAGS too, to
get your garden year off to a great start!

H

as your relationship with your
outdoor space been on a bit of
a break over winter? You’re not
alone! But now it’s time to swing
back into action and get your garden love
life back on track!
Make a date for an early spring clean as
simply clearing up leaves, sticks and twigs can
work wonders to rekindle your garden spark.
And these free* weather-resistant tidy bags,
worth £14.99, with strong grip handles will
make collecting and moving debris much
easier. They can also be used for storing pots
and garden tools in, composting and for
growing fruit trees and potatoes on your patio.

112 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

Fresh start initiated, it’s time to experiment
with a new addition. If you’re already peony
au fait, you’ll know that ‘Coral Sunset’ is a
great catch. If you’re not, believe us, you
won’t want this silky sweetheart to slip through
your fingers. Stunning in the garden and as a
cut flower, the buds stay tight for days before
opening up into goblets of pure joy in June
and July. Cut blooms will last up to 10 days in
a cool room or, if you snip them as the buds

are just starting to break open, up to two
weeks. As they mature, they go through a
series of subtle colour changes, from
salmon-pink to pastel orange-cream. Supplied
as bareroots.
✽ To claim your FREE*
peony plant and three
tidy bags, quote product
codes 580031 (peony)
and 200260 (tidy bags).

READER OFFER

More great deals...

The cupped blooms top
20cm across!

Get fruity on your patio

Save
£30

Perfect for small
spaces and easy to
grow, the Mini Orchard Fruit
Tree Collection includes three
self-fertile compact varieties.
The apple tree produces crisp
and juicy eating apple ‘Braeburn’.
The pear tree grows the
lipsmackingly juicy ‘Conference’,
while you’ll get mouth-watering
‘Victoria’ with the plum tree.
Despite their smaller size, you
can still expect plenty of fruit
July to October, and maybe even in the first year, as well as lots
of lovely blossom in spring. They will be supplied as 1.35m-1.45m
bareroot trees to plant out now while dormant. To order*:

✽ 3 bareroots for £29.97, save £30, product code 300004

Give your trees a treat
This natural, slow-release,
multipurpose feed will give your
plants all the essential nutrients they
need. Add to the top 5cm of
compost when planting for plenty
of juicy fruits! To order*:
✽ 1.5kg tub for £8.99, product code
100046

Nuture plants with compost

Free
postage
worth
£8.99

In handy-sized two 40L
bags, this Professional Compost
is made from the highest quality
ingredients, trialled, tested and
scientifically proven to encourage
plants to grow optimally and reach
their full potential. To order:
✽ Twin pack 40L Professional
Compost for £23.97, product code
100064. The free postage applies to
the compost only.

*
FREE
peony & tidy

bags worth

£24.98

HOW TO ORDER
✽ GO ONLINE

yougarden.com/RMG164
✽ CALL

PHOTO: SHU TTERSTOCK

0800 4488 200 quoting code RMG164 then the
relevant product code/s.
*Postage is £6.99-£8.99 per order (not per item)

T&CS Orders dispatched within 7-10 working days. Mini orchard postage £8.99 for whole order. Contract for
supply is with YouGarden Ltd, Eventus House, Sunderland Road, Market Deeping PE6 8FD. Offer subject
to availability, and in the event that it is oversubscribed, we reserve the right to send suitable substitutes. Free
for every reader offer limited to one per household. UK delivery only. Delivery surcharges may apply for the
following postcode areas: AB, DD8-11, GY, HS, IM, IV, JE, KA27-28, KW, PA20-80, PH19-50, TR21-25 and ZE.
Images show mature plants and are for illustration purposes only. See website for photos of plants as supplied.
Following Brexit there are a number of changes that prevent us from trading in N. Ireland. Full terms and
product details at www.yougarden.com. Offer closes February 29 2024.

FEBRUARY 2024

M O D E R N G A R D E N S 113

GARDEN MAKEOVER

OUR GARDEN CRUSH
We’d be so happy if this STRUCTURED WILDERNESS
with
w
ith swimming
swimm
ming p
pool
ool and
annd glorious
glorioous la
lake
ake vviews
iews belonged
belonged tto
o uuss
phrase that often guides our designs,” explains
Angus. “The design you see now came about
in response to the modern conversion of the
former dairy barn.”

FORMAL MEETS INFORMAL
The swimming pool became the driver in
Angus’ design concept, positioned on the main
axis where east meets south and where bathers
can enjoy the stunning borrowed views. “As part
of the large party space, we built a swimming
pool and created a prototype sliding rolling
wooden deck cover, which can be opened
and closed manually,” he adds. This is also the
perfect spot for loungers so the family can lie
back and revel in the landscape.
Between the pool and house are three
perennial planting beds, enclosed with bespoke
Corten-steel mesh guards to stop pesky rabbits
grazing. Neat hedges draw lines to separate the
mown lawn from the informal areas planted with
trees and swathes of wildflowers.

REFLECTING THE LANDSCAPE
“With the planting we created a bold painterly
wash of colour between the three beds to match
the overall scale of the project,” says Angus.
Key plants such as switch grasses – reddish
‘Rehbraun’ and metallic blue-grey ‘Heavy Metal’
– and zesty lime-green hummocks of Euphorbia
donii connect across them.
The muted purple umbels of Eupatorium
maculatum (Atropurpureum Group)
reflect the waterside location and provide a
pleasing contrast to the vertical plants such
as Veronicastrum ‘Adoration’. Loosestrife
‘Dropmore Purple’ references the purple
loosestrife in the ditches bordering the former
gravel-pit lakes and emphasises the sense of a
garden within a wetland landscape.
“While the clients were novice gardeners at
the outset, they’ve embraced all aspects of the
new design including the wildflower meadows,”
says Angus. “This is critical to the ongoing
success of how the garden looks.”

The garden enjoys long views
to the wildlife lake beyond
while providing a sense of
privacy and enclosure.

nnects
Block planting in the beds co ape
with the wild wider landsc

Switch grasss
‘Rehbraun’
Veroniica
Veronicastrum
‘Adoration’
1 14 M O D E R N G A R D E N S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 4

F E AT U R E: J U L E S B A RTO N - B R EC K . P H OTOS : C L A I R E TA K AC S / TA K AC S P H OTO.CO M .
GARDEN DESIGNER: ANGUSTHOMPSOND E S I GN.CO M/@ ANGUS T HO MPSO N_ D E S I GN.
LANDSCAPER: GARDENLINK.CO.UK

W

ith two acres of land alongside
stunning lakeside views, this
swoonworthy outside space is
going straight onto our top 10 list
of most-lusted-after gardens. The south-eastfacing Oxfordshire plot is owned by a family
with young children who had moved out from
the city, asking designer Angus Thompson
(angusthompsondesign.com) to transform the
original agricultural land into a wild playground
complete with swimming pool and meandering
paths to explore. “Structured wilderness is a

Car or van,
work or play

Take a five-minute pitstop.
Compare insurance with

T&Cs apply. See website for details. Authorised and regulated
by the Financial Conduct Authority. Mustard.co.uk is a
trading name of the H Bauer Publishing Limited Partnership
which for general insurance distribution is an Appointed

Representative of Vast Visibility Limited, 8 Princes Parade,
Liverpool, L3 1DL, which is authorised and regulated by the
Financial Conduct Authority under Firm Reference Number
566973. You can check these details on the FCA Register.

Complete Patio Potato Collection

COMPLETE PATIO
POTATO COLLECTION

NO Digging! NO Effort! NO Garden Required! Harvest in JUST 14 WEEKS From Planting!

JUST

SAVE

YOUR COMPLETE
COLLECTION INCLUDES:

HOW TO PLANT,
GROW AND ENJOY
IN 3 SIMPLE STEPS!

£16!

• 18 Seed Potato ‘Turbo
Tubers’ (6 x 3 varieties)
Normally £5.99 each

£24

.95
+P&P

SAVE £16.00!

‘Pentland Javelin’ (Early)
Fast cropper – just 10 weeks
from planting. Abundant,
gorgeous, soft new potatoes.

STEP 1 Half fill your 30L pot
with compost and place your
Turbo Tubers about 4” deep

Desiree (Maincrop)
Red skin, yellow flesh. Great for
boiling, mashing or as jackets
with lovely crisp skin.

STEP 2 As your potato plants
establish and grow, just keep
topping up the compost

Charlotte (Salad)
All-time-favourite variety!
Perfect as a new potato in
salads or for boiling.

3 Heavy Duty 30L Pots
Normally £14.99
1kg Organic Potato Fertiliser
Normally £7.99

Harvest your own simply
delicious potatoes within
weeks of planting!
SAVE £16.00 when you buy
the Complete Collection for
just £24.95!
Imagine growing the freshest, tastiest crops
of delicious home-grown potatoes – all
from your own patio, with no backbreaking
digging whatsoever! Simply add compost
and water and enjoy the unbeatable
flavour of the freshest new potatoes just
14 weeks from planting! Plant now and
pick your first crops as soon as June!
● The freshest, tastiest, most
delicious ‘tates’ you’ve ever
tasted!
● 6 ‘Turbo Tubers’ each of
3 varieties selected for a range
of harvest dates
● 3 durable and reusable 30 Litre
pots AND organic fertiliser
included!
● Harvest in succession for
4 months from June

COMPLETE PATIO
POTATO COLLECTION
Item Code: 350007

STEP 3 Feed and water (don’t
soak) for a heavy crop of
delicious, tasty new potatoes

3 EASY WAYS
TO ORDER NOW!

0844 502 0050
Calls cost 5p per min plus your network’s access charge.

USE CODE

MG200

Includes: 6 turbo tubers each 3 varieties
of seed potatoes – ‘Charlotte’, ‘Pentland
Javelin’ and ‘Desiree’, 3 Heavy Duty 30
Litre Pots and 1Kg Organic Potato Fertiliser

NOW ONLY £24.95
SAVE £16.00!

www.YouGarden.com/MG200

or by post using coupon below to: Offer MG200 YouGarden, PO Box 1468, Peterborough, PE1 9XL

PLEASE SEND TO: Offer MG200, YouGarden, PO Box 1468, YOUR PAYMENT DETAILS I enclose a cheque/Postal Order payable to
Peterborough, PE1 9XL
YouGarden (name & address on back) for £
Item Description
Price Qty Subtotal Or charge my Visa / Mastercard:
Card
Issue
Complete Patio Potato Growing Collection SAVE £16!
No.
No.
6
‘Turbo
Tubers’
each
of
3
seed
potato
varieties,
3
Heavy
350007
£24.95
Start
Exp
Duty 30L Pots & 1Kg Potato Fertiliser
Date
Date
DELIVERY DETAILS
Potato ‘Top Up’ Collection SAVE £12!
350062 6 ‘Turbo Tubers’ each of 3 seed potato varieties
£13.96
Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss
Initial
Surname
& 1Kg Potato Fertiliser
Address
Twin pack 40 Litre Professional Compost
Postcode
100064
£23.97
2 x 40 Litre Bags SAVE £13 + FREE P&P
Email
If you do not wish to receive catalogues & offers from
Add
Tel
us, please tick here ☐.
£6.99
P&P

YOUR ORDER DETAILS

You Must Use Offer Code MG200
To Get These Exclusive Prices!

TOTAL
ORDER
VALUE

Orders despatched within 5-7 working days. Delivery to UK only and a £6.00 surcharge will apply to
the following postcode areas: AB, DD8-11, GY, HS, IM, IV, JE, KA27-28, KW, PA20-80, PH19-50, TR2125 & ZE. Offer subject to availability and in the event that this offer is oversubscribed, we reserve the
right to send suitable substitutes. Images show mature plants. Following Brexit there are a number of
changes that prevent us from trading in N. Ireland. For further details please visit www.yougarden.com

My DOUBLE GUARANTEE to you!
1 If you’re not totally happy with your order, return it
within 30 days and we’ll replace or refund in full.
2 Should any hardy plants fail to thrive thereafter,
we’ll replace free of charge. You just pay the P&P.

Peter McDermott,
Head Gardener

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If you do not wish to receive these, please tick here ☐.
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© YouGarden 2024.

AD
CODE

MG200

BONUS OFFER SAVE £12.00
POTATO ‘TOP UP’ COLLECTION
Item Code: 350062
The perfect refill collection
for filling your 30L black
pots, or other growing
pots and containers, back
up with tasty spuds! This
collection contains the
ingredients you need to
grow your own potatoes
on your patio, terrace
or even balcony all you
need is a pot or container.
Includes 18 seed potatoes
(6 x ‘Charlotte’ tubers, 6 x
‘Pentland Javelin’ tubers
and 6 x ‘Desiree’ tubers+
plus 1kg Organic Potato
Fertiliser.

JUST £13.96 SAVE £12.00!
Offer available while stocks last. © YouGarden Ltd 2024