I have the privilege to be working on the rejuvenation of a large herbaceous border in the garden of an historic property in Rutland. Hard work, but looking forward to results later in the summer.

Sadly, Covid – 19 has meant that garden coaching has had to come to a temporary halt. The course tailored to the clients’ needs, was based in their garden, covering aspects of design, plant maintenance and care, fruit and vegetable growing.

Planting plans for a range of Rutland and Northamptonshire gardens, small and large, have been created at a pace since January. New borders implemented since then are now growing and coming into flower, now the weather is warming. Styles vary from pictorial meadow mix , cottage garden planting, to grand formal herbaceous borders.

Thankyou to the Welland Valley U3A group for inviting me to talk about the Scented garden in January. The room was filled with scent from winter flowering stems picked in the garden that very morning. Lovely winter flowering honeysuckle and some stems of Sarcococca confusa.

I had hoped to be able to speak to the ladies and gentlemen of the Brixworth group in April, but due to Corona virus this has now been postponed.

Nevertheless, work is still carrying on, the gardens are still growing and I am continuing my professional development, remote study of Garden and Landscape History at the IHR, University of London.

Thankyou to Whissendine gardening club for inviting me to talk in March on the subject of my Gardening Bloomers! Hopefully, everyone can learn from my silly mistakes made in the garden.

Seed sowing, and propagating plants were two workshops I ran at Morcott garden group

Thank you to Manton Gardening group for inviting me to talk in February on the subject of Poison Plants. Discussion on the virtues and difficulties of Ragwort and the medicinal properties of many poison plants.

U3A at Kibworth Old Grammar School Hall were most welcoming in October 2018 when I spoke to a large gathering on Colour through the year in the garden. Not just flowers but leaves, stems and bark.

Many congratulations to Manor School Sports College Raunds as the Midlands Regional winners of the Green Plan It Challenge, for their design project.  I had the privilege of mentoring this team through the design process of their chosen project, an outdoor dining area within the school grounds, which had previously been rarely used.  The team, along with their teacher, had ten weeks from the initial project launch day to measure, plan, collate ideas, draw plans and create a 3D model of a school garden.  The Manor School team presented their completed model, drawn plans plant list and costings to a team of RHS assessors, who were most impressed with ideas and the level of detail in the completed report. Very well done!

A presentation on the use of climbing plants and how to sort out those difficult vertical spaces facing North, South, East and West.  Dry shady North facing walls were thought to be the hardest to cover with colour, but the list of options was proven to be quite wide ranging.