Marc's Gardens

Knowing What You Don't Know There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.   Donald Rumsfeld   Gardening customers of mine will be used to the sight of me working away quite happily with a small and discreet single earpiece, usually stuck in my right ear. Why always my right ear, I don't quite know...? The left earpiece usually sits tucked inside my T-shirt, unless of course I am listening to music (a dead give away!) when you'll see me all wired up in glorious stereophonic sound. Having never been asked in over 5 years of working, last week two customers of mine asked me what it was I was listening to exactly? Well, I can hereby reveal all....  There are a few regular Radio 4 podcasts I download each week: a couple of ga...

Labour of Love   So, anyway, again I hear that gardening tops the poll of happiest jobs. Work-related misery and high suicide rates still appear to attach themselves to GP's and dentists. Strange one that.... and one I've never quite understood myself. But, being neither, what would I know? Although I must confess, my mouth houses more lead than the local church roof and looking at the state of our nation's teeth - well, it's enough to depress anyone I would've thought! So why is gardening constantly uppermost in that list of top jobs? Well, I guess that could do with some of the following observations... my observations that is. What I've seen from 'doing' gardening, teaching gardening, and watching gardeners garden. Here are just a few of my thoughts on the subject... A'hem! 1 - You can't rush the seasons . Unlike most areas of modern business, you simply can't hurry gardening. There are quite definite seasonal tasks, and th...

  Fresh back from two weeks in Thailand, and what an amazing time I had there. As a gardener, I always try to take my holiday in either January or February: it makes complete sense really. In my approach to winter working, I always structure my mentality in the same way. Basically, as autumn approaches I prepare for the cooler, colder days, put my head down and step up a gear, always aiming to work right through until Xmas. It’s a good plan really, as the worst of the winter weather (extreme cold, snow & ice) doesn’t really hit us until after Xmas.   With nothing but a pair of shears and some bamboo supports, Thai gardeners go about shaping these trees.   You would think that with the days getting longer (since Dec 21 st ) and the sun getting slowly stronger… Well, you wonder why it seems to get so much colder in Jan & Feb? Of course, the reason for this is obvious really. Basically, the land and the seas around us have been gettin...

 A stone trough, grown tired with rampant Persicarias... an Agapanthus (if I remember correctly) and other oddities! Let's give it all a huge cut back; take it all down and maybe take most of it out! Then, let's look around the garden and see what free plants there are we could work with.     I am often asked about the process of garden design. The task  of designing a garden seems, at times, almost an impossible thing to do. Think about it. How do you create a garden like those you see out and about when visiting professional or pu blic gardens? It’s a mammoth task really! You want (need) trees and shrubs to give height, structure and a sense of permanence. You need smaller herbaceous plants which rise and fall at different times of the year. You’ll want all-year- round interest, yet given the constraints of border space, how can you achieve this? After all, a plant can only accommodate one unit of soil space at a time. Right? ...