The Hopeful Gardener Blog

This Spring, we are launching our "Make Your Garden Shed Proud" Campaign - as avid garden fans ourselves we all to often neglect our garden shed (I apologise for those who are more festidious than others in this regard!)

In our bid to ensure that we make the old garden shed proud, we will...Read more

Once upon a time my son Ben dug a hole. He had just finished his GCSE's and he and his mates thought it would be a good idea to have a pond in our back garden. 1m deep and 3m diameter they stopped. Impressive as it is chalk and flint 15cm down. It is at this point I arrived home to this plesent supr...Read more

We visited Polesden Lacey near Dorking in Surrey yesterday on a beautiful late summers day. Although the daylight hours are shortening, with the mornings cooler and evening getting chilly, the day was warm in the sun.
The National Trust do such a fabulous job. The house was closed but it was th...Read more

I simply have to recommend this site. Its host, Alan Titchmarch, succinctly introduces gardening to a beginner. With text, audio and links it is a great starting resource. Log onto the BBC home page and search 'gardening'
Michael....Read more

Well I hope your garden is giving you much pleasure this year. It certainly has been a mixed bag with days of sunshine and rain.
We keep one bank completely untended outside our kitchen window, some 10x2m, small as it is, called the 'Wild Meadow'...Read more

We are off to Glee at the NEC Birmingham tomorrow.
What I love about exhibitions is that you never know where it will lead you. We are going with not a little excitement, looking for the unexpected. I hope we will be able to bring interesting ideas and products to our site soon. I'll let you k...Read more

A few weeks back we planted winter potatoes and already the are growing strongly.
Our summer potatoes were the first we had planted and were fantastic. Bursting with flavour. I have great hope for our winter ones. The pleasure in home grown is genuine. There is a huge enjoyment in eating your ...Read more

By far my favourite tree in our garden. Every spring I look forward to its golden yellow leaves appearing. Intensely luminous in sunlight fluttering like feathers in the breeze.
This year, suddenly and without any obvious sign of disease, only a few branches have produced leaves. Most of the tr...Read more

It's been several months in the hosepipe pipeline but our new Blog software is finally online!  You are now able to comment on our ramblings, so please feel free to spice up the debates.  Comments from the old Blog were migrated this morn...Read more

It is rather a shame that our somewhat damp summer will soon be drawing to a close.  In fact you can already feel that the nights are getting colder and the evenings do appear to be drawing in a bit too quickly!

Most of us are still enjoying the fruits (and vegetables) of our labours...Read more