#watergarden – The Chi Gardener

There are no words to describe the immense joy I feel about appearing in the My Real Garden book, alongside its creators Ann-Marie Powell and Tamsin Westhorpe, and the rest of the contributors in our My Real Garden community.

Writing a book is tough enough, but when you factor in the pressure of having to crowdfund the publishing costs, collating contributions and an impossibly tight deadline, it’s a miracle that we have it in our hands at all!

I have nothing but pride and admiration for what our community have achieved, together, for Greenfingers Charity. It’s a beautiful memento of a life-affirming year, and I am just so privileged to be bound together with you all.

When I began creating my garden, I never imagined that it would be leading a chapter on Tropical Retreats and the close connections it would bring me, be that on Instagram or the gardening community as a whole.

In these pages I take you on a journey through my garden and discuss my love of lush, architectural foliage, planting for pollinators, my passion for ponds and healthy, happy hedgehogs. I even share my tips for growing space-saving vegetables.

Compassion for my community shines through, be that my love for Leasowes Walled Garden or how a pandemic inspired the Plant a Thought project, launched to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week.

I am now part of a philanthropic phenomenon, where kindness is king and people in the community send you handmade bunting to help you celebrate this special occasion. WE DID IT!

The book will be exclusively launched through British Garden Centres Group. Retail outlet details can be found on http://britishgardencentres.com. It will go on general release through Amazon from 1st April 2021.

Your purchase will support Greenfingers – the wonderful UK charity that funds magical gardens in children’s hospices, giving life-limited children and their families precious time together.

It was a lovely surprise to have received a mention in Modern Gardens (April 2017 – Issue 13) and see what everybody else is getting up to in the ‘WE LOVE OUTDOOR LIVING’ section of its magazine. This magnificent monthly chimes perfectly with my belief that gardening should be accessible to all and provide an opportunity for rehabilitation and reinterpreting an age-old British pastime. It’s packed full of inspiring projects and scintillating shares by readers of all means and backgrounds, breaking down barriers and adding to the sense of belonging and community, while giving you aspirations for your own garden. I love it!

Within the past 8 years I have spent a great deal of my time completely reworking a pre-war garden, retaining and reusing existing materials and sympathetically incorporating a number of new materials, design elements and specimen plants. The design of this garden has water at its heart and features exotic planting and Eastern sculptures alongside more traditional influences and planting schemes. I created this circular paved seating area, adjacent to the pond, choosing furniture that adds height and elevates me above the water. The burnt orange of the Hemerocallis fulva ‘Flore Pleno’, the brilliant red of Dahlia ‘Bishop of Llandaff’, and the hot pink of the Drosanthemum were new additions, last year, successfully transporting me to more exotic climes.

Hemerocallis (Daylily) and Dahlia have both undergone something of a revival of late and I can’t think of enough superlatives to sum up these show-stopping sirens. Take Hemerocallis, for example – yesterday, they were nowhere to be seen and today they’re trumpeting temptresses! Individual flowers are short-lived, (hence their name) but plants can produce a profusion of flowers, in succession, which could last for many weeks. Hemerocallis fulva ‘Flore Pleno’ certainly packs a pyrotechnic punch: like a dragon, spewing forth flames, it’s exceptionally exotic-looking and befitting of its primarily Eastern Asian roots, where dragons are usually a beneficent symbol of fertility, associated with water and the heavens. ‘Flore Pleno’ certainly fits the bill!