Send us a text As the sun turns up the heat, so do the challenges in our gardens. In this summer edition of the Loving Your Garden podcast, I’m joined by our resident horticulturist John Stirland and award-winning garden designer David Stevens for a lively and practical chat about gardening through the warmer months. We explore clever ways to keep your plants happy during hot, dry spells, how to water wisely, and what to plant right now for colour and resilience. Whether you’re battling parched ...
Jun 22, 2025•33 min•Season 5Ep. 6
Send us a text This might just be our best episode yet from LYG HQ! Steve Fives is officially Loving Your Garden’s most engaging member – with more views, comments, and conversations than anyone else in the group… including me, and I run the place! Steve’s garden is something you have to see to believe, so if you’d rather watch this episode, head over to our YouTube channel: Watch on YouTube But don’t go just yet – Steve’s also a brilliant speaker, and this conversation on creating lawn envy is ...
May 18, 2025•31 min•Season 5Ep. 5
Send us a text With UK gardens bursting into colour, this is a beautiful time of year — but it’s also a busy time, preparing the garden for the seasons ahead. In the second half of our conversation with Gardener and Broadcaster Martin Fish and our own John Stirland, we cover: Pest control, notably slugs and snails Growing your own food Container gardening Getting the best from roses Effective watering Peat-free compost Plus, an important Health and safety tip for keen gardeners Thanks to Martin ...
Apr 20, 2025•32 min•Season 5Ep. 4
Send us a text The new gardening year is well underway, and our Loving Your Garden Facebook group is bursting with colourful spring blooms and a real sense of excitement as our gardens awaken from their winter slumber. So, what better time to get stuck into those all-important early-season jobs? To help us on our way, we’ve called on two seasoned pros — our resident horticulturist John Stirland and his long-time friend, RHS judge and fellow horticulturist Martin Fish, who many will remember as J...
Apr 09, 2025•26 min•Season 5Ep. 3
Send us a text If you've resolved to growing more cut flowers in '25 then you'll find Roz Chandler from Field Gate Flowers an interesting guest. Roz talks about starting her cut flower farm 15 years ago almost by mistake and now runs a successful business growing, displaying and teaching floral horticulture. She has some useful tips for starting a cut flower garden and we also get around to discussing peat-free compost including the two brands Roz swears by and how climate change will have a maj...
Jan 18, 2025•26 min•Season 5Ep. 2
Send us a text It's become a thing for multi-award-winning garden designer David Stevens to drop in over Christmas with our resident horticulturist John Stirland over a glass of sherry for a gardening chinwag. The result is always educational as these two stalwarts trade wisdom and a few laughs. The wisdom includes suggestions for Winter interest in an all-year-round garden, some garden design tips, a discussion about gifts for the gardener who has everything, and the one garden tool that neithe...
Jan 01, 2025•22 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Send us a text 11 Times RHS Chelsea Gold Medallist (and LYG member), David Stevens, has designed a few gardens in his long career (understatement). Enough to earn him 26 RHS medals and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Garden Designers. In this short video (link below), David outlines 8 key steps to consider before embarking on a garden makeover that will save you time, effort, and tears. He finishes by outlining a postal design service* that makes his knowledge and expertise surp...
Aug 27, 2024•14 min•Season 4Ep. 9
Send us a text Recent press reports would have you believe Bamboo is the devil incarnate but does it deserve its bad reputation? While it's certainly true some varieties can be highly destructive, are gardeners right to shun it at all costs? Who better to ask than Tony Churley who's been growing varieties of Bamboo for the best part of forty years? Both John Stirland and I have had bad experiences with Bamboo so we didn't give Tony a free ride. Still, he puts up some strong arguments for the pla...
Aug 11, 2024•28 min•Season 4Ep. 8
Send us a text Firstly, apologies for our silence over the past few weeks, we've been busy creating a brand new YouTube channel and subscription newsletter (links below) as well as overhauling our Facebook group to accommodate the massive new growth of 'Loving Your Garden' - now 378 thousand members. Now that we're back into the routine we've re-commenced series 4 with a gardening clinic - hosted by myself and our resident horticulturist John Stirland with the added pleasure of the company of Ba...
Jul 02, 2024•32 min•Season 4Ep. 7
Send us a text It's always a pleasure and a privilege to be in the company of one of the UK's foremost plantswomen, Rosy Hardy. With countless RHS gold medals to her name, Rosy has become a leading authority on Herbaceous Perennials and this is pure gold for any gardener that is looking for a new dimension to their garden. If you're in a rush, go to our chapter page and choose your topic of interest but to be honest, you'd be better staying for the whole conversation to catch every last morsel o...
Apr 17, 2024•40 min•Season 4Ep. 6
Send us a text It’s always a pleasure to welcome our favourite Nature Watcher Mary Porter onto LYG. Spring in the UK is a great time for an update from Mary whose knowledge and experience of the natural world is much appreciated by all of us at LYG and to listeners of her regular spot on my Boom Radio show. This is a lovely chat about the current state of our wildlife and how we can encourage more creatures into our gardens, both for the good of the environment and our mental-wellbeing. In assoc...
Apr 10, 2024•49 min•Season 4Ep. 5
Send us a text In association with Magic Mind - Mental Performance Shots They have a limited offer you can use now, that gets you up to 48% off your first subscription or 20% off one-time purchases with code LOVEGARDEN20 at checkout You can claim it at: https://www.magicmind.com/lovegarden W e have a double bonus for you in our latest episode with John Stirland laying out some solid tips for getting your lawn into top shape for Summer and with guest Ed Zamo dropping into Rod's Summerhouse with a...
Mar 27, 2024•48 min•Season 4Ep. 4
Send us a text There is nothing so satisfying than adding food to your dinner plate that you've grown from seed. While many gardeners are well-equipped to sow and propagate both vegetables and ornamentals, most others prefer the convenience of potted and plug plants. However, with the costs of plants and food now a significant factor, growing from seed is an attractive option. Tom Sharples has devoted almost half a century to the seed industry and recently retired as Senior Horticultural Manager...
Mar 11, 2024•33 min•Season 4Ep. 3
Send us a text Deep Joy! Winter's last hurrah is nearly upon us, at least if you're in Northern Europe, and it's time to finish off the Winter pruning. Our resident horticulturist John Stirland covers the basics and answers member questions on specific plants including Philadelphus, Fig, Ceonothus, Honeysuckle, and roses. As ever, John covers a lot of ground with lots of snippets of really useful information so it's worth listening through the whole half hour. If you've not yet visited our LYG F...
Feb 20, 2024•31 min•Season 4Ep. 2
Send us a text Our resident horticulturist John Stirland kicks off season 4 of Loving Your Garden - Better Gardening Podcast with a masterclass in seed sowing. John is in full flow here with oodles of great advice on growing plants from seed as a new gardening year gets underway. John also takes questions from our LYG site members. It's best to sit back and enjoy the full episode but if you're tight for time, our chapter guide may be helpful. If you've not yet visited our LYG Facebook site, here...
Feb 05, 2024•45 min•Season 4Ep. 1
Send us a text You'll need to check out the Loving Your Garden site to see our festive guests in their Santa gear but you can hear the fun in our season finale as horticulturist, gardening writer, broadcaster and RHS judge, Martin Fish , and multi-award-winning garden designer, David Stevens join John Stirland and LYG founder Rod Whiting for an end of season chat over a tipple or two. Have a pen and paper handy as we discuss a busy gardening year, highlights & failures (yes, professionals ha...
Dec 29, 2023•43 min•Season 3Ep. 16
Send us a text We borrowed our guest's phrase 'happy, healthy house plants' this week as it aptly describes a nirvana that many of us struggle with. Jane Perrone is a gardening writer and podcaster whose articles many will have read in the Guardian, Financial Times, and The RHS Garden Magazine among many publications. Jane's passion for houseplants shines through in our chat this week, dealing with the essentials of light, watering, and feeding as you might expect. But, also with sound advice on...
Nov 13, 2023•39 min•Season 3Ep. 15
Send us a text It's been a while since we checked in with our resident horticulturist John Stirland who's forgotten more than I'll ever know about gardening so it's nice to talk about getting ready for some Winter colour, Autumn feeding, and pruning as well as lots of other topical chat, and answers to member questions that you'll doubtless find useful. Check out the chapter tab if you want to save time and pick specific topics. Thanks to our UK-based sponsors Fitzgerald Laing Decorators: for a ...
Oct 25, 2023•36 min•Season 3Ep. 14
Send us a text There's been a noticeable increase in discussions on the LYG Facebook site about the forthcoming ban on the use of peat products in UK gardens, due to be enforced from the end of next year. To help us make sense of it all, our guests this week are Jonathan Whittemore from Johnsons of Whixley, a Yorkshire-based plant wholesaler, and Ruth Goudy, garden writer and owner of Kiln Farm Nursery and Garden Centre in Suffolk. Jonathan also chairs the Ornamental Management Committee of the ...
Oct 11, 2023•39 min•Season 3Ep. 13
Send us a text It is a delight to have Rosy back to chat about what can, with the right planting, be a spectacular time of year in the garden. Rosie and her husband Rob supply a vast number of herbaceous perennials from their nurseries at Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants in Hampshire, UK https://www.hardysplants.co.uk/ . Rosie is also a multi-award winning plantswoman and currently Vice-President of the RHS. We talk about the best herbaceous perennials for Autumn interest, how and when to divide th...
Sep 16, 2023•50 min•Season 3Ep. 12
Send us a text Our Gardening maestro John Stirland is in great form as we consider plants that will add a little lustre to a flagging garden at this time of year. Flowers, shrubs, and trees all feature in our suggestions for adding some late seasonal interest, so it's worth having a pen and paper to hand as we go. Just a heads-up that we'll get another perspective on Autumn colour with an old friend of LYG, Rosy Hardy from Hardy's Cottage Garden Plants, in mid-September, so do subscribe to be su...
Aug 26, 2023•24 min•Season 3Ep. 11
Send us a text It's not every day you get to chat with one of the UK's top plantswomen, a renowned garden designer and the Gandalf of gardening but that was my pleasure when Rosy Hardy, David Stevens and John Stirland all gathered by Rosy's plant stand at the Belvoir Castle Flower and Garden Show. It was a delightful conversation about Summer gardens that I'm sure you'll find informative and entertaining. There's also some bonus clips from this year's annual Glee Garden and Leisure Show at the B...
Jul 19, 2023•20 min•Season 3Ep. 10
Send us a text Everybody says it's been a great year for so many plants but especially roses so it's a good time to dwell on the ubiquitous rose: conditions, care, suggested varieties, and member questions answered by LYG's resident horticulturist John Stirland. We do discuss a couple of varieties so I've attached a link to pics of the roses we discuss but, frankly, there are so many varieties, it really is a question of personal taste. Roses mentioned in the podcast visible on LYG page (link be...
Jun 26, 2023•29 min•Season 3Ep. 9
Send us a text By now, the heavy work is likely done and we can start finessing, ready to relax and enjoy our gardens. If only! Of course, there's always something to be getting on with and, this week, we look at pruning and pest control. Meanwhile, John answers a variety of member questions that commonly arise at this time of the year. You'll find a host of experienced gardeners on our LYG Facebook site but if you'd prefer to ask John direct, you can email [email protected] and...
May 28, 2023•32 min•Season 3Ep. 8
Send us a text As gardeners, we're closer than most to nature and we have a good understanding of the role we play in attracting wildlife into our neighbourhoods. But, with many species in a progressive decline over recent decades, that responsibility becomes ever more critical. Mary Porter has dedicated much of her life to wildlife promotion and protection and we're delighted to have her as a guest to LYG as Spring brings fresh challenges and opportunities for us to do our bit. Thanks to our UK...
May 08, 2023•46 min•Season 3Ep. 7
Send us a text We put so much effort into finding the right plants for our garden, we sometimes miss the bigger picture of creating the right framework for all those expensive trees, shrubs, and flowers. The cost of good quality landscaping can be offputting but, like any good investment, it can pay off many times over. Our chat with professional garden landscaper Jan Prodger from Ace of Spades Garden Maintenance and Design gives a good insight into points to consider, and appreciation of the be...
Apr 27, 2023•32 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Send us a text There are few better qualified to talk about herbaceous perennials than 24-time Chelsea gold medal winner Rosy Hardy from Hardy's Cottage Garden Plants and we're delighted to have the benefit of her knowledge once again to discuss this garden essential. We talk about seed sowing, plant breeding, and popular plant choices for '23. We also discuss how to use herbaceous plants effectively in your garden and Rosy makes some interesting points about colours and shapes. We also discuss ...
Apr 08, 2023•43 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Send us a text Step away from the Garden Centre! Well, just for a moment as multi-award-winning garden designer and LYG member David Stevens gives you some valuable tips on using colour, texture, and shape of both foliage and flowers to keep your garden looking its best all through the year, including Winter. Once again David is a rich source of knowledge as he joins resident horticulturist John Stirland and LYG founder Rod Whiting for a look ahead to the gardening year now that the long Winter ...
Mar 21, 2023•45 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Send us a text It's not terribly inviting outside, where I am at least, with snow falling and low temperatures set for the next few days. However, that hasn't stopped me from planting a good size Amelanchier Lamarckii and having a wee tidy up of some borders. This is the thing about March and whatever the weather might throw at us, gardeners gotta garden! And that's the theme of this week's podcast with horticulturist John Stirland answering LYG member questions and discussing jobs to be getting...
Mar 08, 2023•35 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Send us a text Given reported supermarket shortages of fresh salad and veg plus exorbitant prices, there's never been a better time to consider growing your own, if you don't already. Our guest this week is an American garden writer who grew up on a farm in the Deep South of the US and has written many books about growing your own veg - Maggie Stuckey. Maggie and our own John Stirland are of like minds and spend half an hour putting the case for container gardening of veg and herbs to a sceptica...
Feb 19, 2023•34 min•Season 3Ep. 2
