The Garden Log

The Secrets Gardens Keep

From Venice to Plumstead, remarkable stories lurk behind ivy-covered walls. This episode of the Garden Log leaps the wall of an abandoned garden on the island of Giudecc

Is the Cottage Garden Dead?

Can the English Cottage Garden survive in the new world of scorching summers and blasted borders? Is there still a place for higgledy beauty and perennial favourites in

Abutilon, Abutilon!

Celebrating the beauty and strangeness of plants. This week we lope into the half-shade with graceful Magnolia kobus, elegant Abutilon 'Patrick Synge' and the monstrous

Sisyphus on the Lawn

An existential defence of high maintenance gardening. Why should we strive for ease when working outside feels so good? With some carex, some meristems and some plant mor

So farewell Monty Don

In this post-rain episode of cult gardening podcast The Garden Log we say goodbye to the universal uncle Monty Don who is to retire from Gardeners' World. But our Garden

Plants for problematic places, paths for ponderous people: a gardening podcast

In this late summer sunset of an episode Ben visits Down House, home of Charles Darwin, considers the hybrid geranium and praises the Michaelmas daisy. Any emails to th

Heavenly Dishevelment

Are the best gardens designed or created? Why are there beetles crawling on my World of Interiors magazine? What cut flowers would go with my collection of pornographic p

Flight of the aspidistra

Two very different 3am trips to the garden this week as heat gives way to rain. Also, using soft cuttings and plastic cups to make plants from plants, some Musa basjoo, s

Grey sedge, smuggled cuttings, a watering disaster and the new garden at Grosvenor Square

How will our gardens look in the future? Ben visits the new garden in Grosvenor Square with its Nigel Dunnett planting to find out. Also featuring: tragedy at bathtime;

Old roses, strange apples: finding beauty in the bleached bones of an English summer

Is Thomas Knight the greatest villain in the history of fruit growing? And how does a Frenchman's marriage influence the rose gardens of England? These and other very imp

In praise of shadow, featuring Baroque hornbeams and Emily Brontë

We find ourselves at the mercy of forces beyond our control and hide from the wind and sun under a leafy bowers of the Baroque garden at Gammel Holtegård. A gardening pod

Green Fingers are the Extensions of a Verdant Heart: Russell Page and Redcurrants

Just after the summer's hinge, Ben eats his neigbours' soft fruit, considers the lily and reads that all-time classic of garden writing The Education of a Gardener. Her

Green Ghosts and Fading Clones

Welcome to season 2 of the Garden Log. Ben says goodbye to the Danish garden and prepares to return to London. Featuring, seeds, clones and the horticultural spirits tha

How to keep plants alive (and other mysteries)

In this excellent episode Ben finds roses like cats, lawns like dunes and flowers like clothes pegs. Also featuring a few simple tricks to stop things dying.

Pine riots, wolf-vines and the joy of other people's gardens: A gardening podcast

Its a sultry spring day on the Garden Log. We muse on the kindness of strangers, advise on planting for a rubble-strewn drive and yearn for romance. https://ko-fi.com/b

Underrated shrubs, sweet perfumes and the art of the Garden Room: A petal strewn podcast

In this recreation of a lost walk Ben visits the garden of G. N Brandt (deceased) who brought the arts and crafts movement to Denmark and whose modest orchard-watergarden

#100 Perfect mistakes, rhubarb, rollercoasters, tulips and timeslips: A gardening podcast

Its spring and Ben is gardening hard. In a special dispatch from the flowerbeds he reports on sparrows, cosmos and creeping jenny. Also featuring a trip to the fairground

#99 Wildflowers, Tyrants and Sweet Magnolia: A Gardening Podcast

Ben discusses Ornithogolum, irises, poppies and golden fleece. Also featuring a trip to the Boboli gardens in Florence and a reading from The Grove: A Nature Odyssey in 1

#98 [On Location] The good, the mad and the hyggeligt: front gardens of Hellerup

In this special episode of The Garden Log Ben walks out one mid-spring morning in search of beauty and blossom. The pavements brings him plants, thoughts, birdsong and so

#97 Of oligarchs, snowberries and other shade lovers: A gardening podcast

The garden log comes out in favour of seed heads, weeds some beds, throws some droops, sees some shoots - you know, gardening stuff! For events tickets go here - https: