Countless hectares of monoculture farming practices over the last 50 years have crushed biodiversity levels. Farming practices need to change. This will require top-down political pressure. But we gardeners can make our own small changes to support biodiversity, from the bottom up. There are approximately 23 million gardens in the UK - that potentially adds up to a big effect!

What a beautiful country Romania is, offering the opportunity to get away from the usual tourist destinations. Choose the right areas and you will glimpse landscapes that are a reminder of the way the countryside used to look across much of Europe and the UK too.  For anyone who loves nature, in Romania, it is possible to see permaculture farming at work enabling people and nature to co-exist in balance. 

As I wandered around a monastery garden in Romania, somewhat to my surprise, I realised that the majority of the plants and flowers were ones we all know and grow in the UK. In fact, if it were not for the different architecture, I could have been in Perthshire, Scotland!

Aren’t we a bit like bees, attracted by the colours of flowers. But unlike bees, driven by instinct to search for nectar as food for the hive, we are driven by our search for beauty – food for the mind.

We live in a world of processed foods and processed lives – conformities forced on us that often seem to detach us from the natural world all around. Growing veg and foraging for wild food can help counter these stresses, declutter our lives in a natural way.

SeeHow’s latest gardening book is now out! SeeHow – Vegwas launched at the @RHS Hampton Court Flower Festival on 01 July 2025. It includes 107 of the most widely grown vegetables, each one illustrated to show the its whole life in the veg bed, with all the required technical information on the back of each illustration. Follow the notes on the back and enjoy eating what is shown on the front! Happy veg growing!

Gardens can flourish throughout all of the seasons of the year. Winter is no exception and there are many plants that have evolved to be at their best at this time. Some also provide an important source of winter nectar and habitat for our biodiversity. SeeHow’s latest blog looks at a selection of reliable winter-flowering plants and bulbs.

Winter gardens can be full of colour and structure while also supporting our beleaguered biodiversity. And yet few gardeners specifically plant with winter colour in mind - perhaps a missed opportunity. It is just a matter of selecting the right shrubs, plants and bulbs. There are plenty of options to choose from to give a garden a colourful boost during the short chilly winter days. This blog looks at some shrubs and small trees that provide superb winter garden colour. The next blog will look plants and bulbs that flower during winter and early spring.

The mild microclimate running along the north Aberdeenshire coast meant the end of ice harvesting almost 60 years ago. Instead, the area is attracting tourists, artists and gardeners, drawn by the dramatic scenery and superb growing conditions. It is not too hot in the summer and not too cold in the winter - a ‘goldilocks zone’ for plants. The times may be a-changing, but there is a silver lining too!

Many plants are beginning to fade – becoming passed their best. It is easy to become a little despondent, thinking that the gardening year is almost over, whereas we are really just transitioning from one season to the next. But even now, there are many plants still in flower … reasons to be cheerful …

The open gardens of country houses and castles are a fantastic resource for gardeners. They are the places to go to, to see a huge variety of plants growing in different conditions and in different combinations. They are packed with ideas to easily take away with a phone camera. And, they can be visited more than once, to see how plants performs over their annual cycles. When planning a border, this is one of the key considerations, which is why we invented SeeHow – a flowering guide that actually shows the whole lifecycle of each plant.

Plants come and go throughout the year, each one making its contribution to the ‘garden fuse’. But this contribution is much more than just a few colourful weeks … a significant part of this is plant foliage. Foliage gives form and structure to gardens over the whole gardening year. And sometimes forgotten, foliage also provides all sorts of nooks and crannies for our struggling biodiversity. Ideally, leave it in place after the plant starts to die as it still provides a home for numerous insects. SeeHow can help planning for foliage as well as flower colour as the illustrations actually show the whole annual cycle of each plant including foliage growth. Use SeeHow to help understand the annual life-cycle of your whole garden and support biodiversity too!