People, Plants + Places

This week our Garrya eliptica seemed to suddenly turn a corner.  Almost overnight its long silvery catkins started to lengthen and our eyes were suddenly drawn to the back of...

Our lovely woodland garden at Genus HQ is planted with a range of spring flowering bulbs, shrubs, and perennials.  Each year one of the Helleborus foetidus plants puts out curious...

It’s mid winter, but there are plenty of jobs to get on with in the garden. Here’s our top 10: Cut down tatty stems of perennials such as sedum and...

We love feeding the birds at Genus HQ. A range of dishes from fatballs and peanuts, to suet pellets and niger seeds are on the menu and keep most of...

It may be a quieter month in the garden but there is still plenty to do to keep the garden tidy and weed-free, ready for the year ahead. Clean and...

We’ve been clearing leaves from the lawns at Genus HQ with huge piles scooped, wheeled, and deposited into our wire leaf-enclosures.  A large mound to the side of the driveway...

Not long after our first snow of the year air temperatures dropped sufficiently at Genus HQ for the pond to freeze over.  A thriving home for wildlife including toads, newts,...

It's chilly, but there's still plenty to harvest, prune and tidy, and this is a great time to prepare for the busier months ahead. If your garden lacks winter interest...

We’ve had our first snow of the season at Genus HQ.  Cold blustery showers on already very wet ground made gardening virtually impossible.  Standing on the paths to avoid damaging...

Some of our favourite plants in the Genus garden are also some of the most successful; they put on so much growth that we dig up and divide them every...

Dry stone walls are a key feature of the Cotswolds where we are based, criss-crossing the hills and meadows creating beautiful field boundaries that total a remarkable 4,000 miles.  Some...

Much maligned for strangling trees and pulling mortar from house walls, ivy (Hedera helix) is a plant that we should  all try to love just a little bit more.  Surrounded...

Every autumn our Cape Gooseberries announce themselves with bright orange lanterns that go hand in hand with falling leaves, the smell of wood smoke, and the gradual decline of the...

We are very lucky to have two semi mature horse chestnut trees in the Genus garden.  They shelter our three large leafmould enclosures and provide us with a degree of...

Incredibly reliable and requiring so little attention our two Leycesteria formosa or Himalayan Honeysuckle are real beacons in the garden at this time of year.  Making a change from the...

We love our beautiful anemones that grow quietly away with little fuss or interference from us.  They bring a splash of light into the north side of the house, welcoming...

We always grow far too many tomatoes.  Packets of tomato seeds seem to be one of the favourite choices for gardening magazines to give away and we sow all of these free seeds.  Unfortunately,...

There’s plenty to harvest this month. And with the days getting shorter and cooler, try to make the most of the remaining warmth and enjoy your late summer garden. Dig...

Found in a hole in the large ash tree next to the front gate was this little fellow; not a mouse, but a vole.  We seem to have a lot...

Joff, our gardener, has been on holiday for the last three weeks so everything is behind and the rest of the team have been struggling to fit in some gardening...

It’s a very busy time in the Genus garden.  The flower garden can pretty much look after itself for a few weeks, just a bit of weeding, tying in, and...