Planting

Colour Your Garden

Flowers, Garden Design, Gardening, Leisure time in the garden, Planting, Summer Colour in garden. garden furniture

At Bath Garden Design, we are huge fans of colour in the garden, whether it is from the planting or the structures such as fences and gates, furniture and timber structures as well as walls. Colour can either perk up a grey day, of which we have had far too many lately, or it can […]

Sweet Peas

Flowers, Gardening, Planting, Summer flowers, plants, Sweet Peas

The heady old-fashioned scent of sweet peas conjures up summery memories for many people.They are very easy to grow and you will get a lot of pleasure from them so I would encourage anyone to have a go.

No Garden Growing

Gardening, Planting pots and containers

Not everyone has room in their garden to grow vegetables or indeed has a garden at all. It is possible to grow vegetables and salads in pots and containers on a balcony, windowsill or simply on steps or in hanging baskets. Vegetables can be as pretty as flowers and they add a very different dimension […]

Magnificent Magnolias

Garden Design, Gardening, Landscaping, Planting, Spring Bath Botanical Gardens, Magnolia denudata, Magnolia grandiflora, Magnolia sinensis, Magnolia soulangiana, Magnolia stellata, Magnolia viginiana, Magnolia wilsonii

One of my favourite moments in the year is when the Magnolias start to flower. Along with wisteria, Magnolias herald the new season of sunny warm days and having been modestly hidden in the garden for months, they suddenly show themselves everywhere with their amazing pinky white cup and star shaped blooms. Magnolias are unimaginably […]

House Leeks

Garden Design, Gardening, Leisure time in the garden, Planting, Summer beauty, bedding, bedding schemes, camomile, compost, dry stone walls, glaucous, gravel, grit, hardy, House Leeks, Italian Renaissance, leaves, mint, mulch, ornamental plants, pink flowers, planting schemes, pleasure gardens, pot, Sedum, Sempervivum, soil, sunshine, tarragon, violets

Houseleeks or Sempervivum (meaning live for ever) are succulent ornamental hardy plants that have been used in pleasure gardens since around the thirteenth century. Later during the Italian Renaissance these plants were adopted for use in planting schemes as a solid massed groundcover, which also included camomile, mint, tarragon and violets.

Creepy Crawlies

Edibles, Gardening, Pests and Diseases, Planting, Spring, Summer broccoli, cloche, copper ring, dandelions, eggs, grit, lavender, lettuce, nematodes, pellet, pests, plants, shells, slugs, snails, sprouts

The war being waged between gardeners and slugs and snails is a never-ending one. I have been known to obsessively go out after dark during the summer months with a torch and bucket and pick the critters off my plants, much to the amusement of my family. They are then swiftly dispatched in the lane […]

Fabulous Fennel

Edibles, Gardening, Planting architectural plant, aromatically, Bath, bronze fennel, celery, coir pots, cultivate, Dahlia Bishop of Llandaff, environmentally friendly, feathery leaves, fennel, flower border, flowers, herb garden, herbalists, herbs, kitchen garden, leaves, medicinal herb, perennial, Prior Park Garden Centre, scent, season, seeds, self seeding, spring, stems, texture, umbelliferous, Verbena bonarienesis, weeds

Fennel is an exceptionally good looking and glamorous hardy perennial, which deserves its place in both the kitchen garden or herb garden as well as the flower border. At this time of year, it really comes into its own adding a feathery soft and scented texture to the garden. Native to Southern Europe, Fennel has […]

Social Climbers

Garden Design, Gardening, Landscaping, Planting climbing rose, colours, flowering, flowers, greenfly, Kiftsgate rose, ladybirds, larvae, pruning, rambling rose, stems

There is little to beat the spectacle of a climbing or rambling rose in the summer. There are not many other plants that can flower so profusely and in such a variety of colours and shades and take up a relatively small area on the ground compared to the enormous vertical space they can fill. […]

The buzz on bees

Gardening, Pests and Diseases, Planting, Spring, Summer, Wildlife aubrietia, Bath Beekeepers, bee nesting box, Bees, birdbath, Borage, bumblebee, catkins, chemicals, crocuses, crops, disease, fruit, fruit trees, grass, hay meadows, hazel, heather, hedgerows, herbicides, herbs, hibernation, honey bees, larva, nectar, nests, pesticides, pollen, pond, primrose, Pulmonaira, Shrubs, slugs and snails, snowdrops, wildflowers, willow

It is well documented how much trouble our bees are in. Their decline is extremely worrying and they really need our help. This week I have been talking to Louis Hodgkin of the Bath Beekeepers Association about this very serious situation. All bees are suffering for three main reasons, disease, the widespread use of pesticides […]

The lazy days of summer

Days Out, Fruit and Vegetables, Garden Design, Gardening, Landscaping, Leisure time in the garden, Pests and Diseases, Planting, Summer annuals, borders, Ceonothus, Colour, deadheading, Escallonia, feeding, flowers, Foxgloves, frost, garden, gardening, geraniums, irises, July, lupins, perennials, Philadelphus, Physocarpus, pots and containers, pruning, rhizones, scent, seed, semi-ripe, watering, weeding, Weigela, wisterial, work

I love the July garden, even mine, which although a work in progress has borders beautifully full to bursting and full of colour and scent. Ideally at this time of year we should all be enjoying our gardens and the fruits of our labour. Everything is at its peak and looking great so we should […]