It is Autumn, or nearly so. Meteorological autumn began on 1 September, so we are well into that. But astronomical autumn starts in a few days’ time. The Greenwich Observatory give the…

On Friday, we tidied up the hundreds of pots filling the back stage in order to make it usable for functions other than storage. This threw up the problem of what to…

Forest Gate had 12 hours of rain yesterday, from fierce downpour to drizzle, almost filling the metre cube that collects water from our pergola. It has the largest roof area and we…

It feels like autumn in the garden. There’s lots of leaf fall and leaves on the sycamore and birch are yellowing. This is the effect of heat and drought. The trees are…

The weather has been hot and dry for many weeks. July was the driest month on record in the UK, and August continues that way. The garden is suffering. Last Friday, I…

It’s been a busy period in the garden this month. There was Forest Gate Festival at the beginning of the month, which split us in two. We were one of the 120…

The pond is low, a foot lower than it was in spring. The hot, dry weather is drying it out rapidly. The underwater plants, hornwort and elodea, are crowding the pond, their…

These are busy summer days, making up for the listless covid days of the last couple of years. The Garden organised the Forest Gate garden trail last weekend, when 18 gardens around…

The elder (Sambucus nigra) is in bloom, a white umbrella of tiny flowers, hundreds on our tree. Last week in the countryside I saw many of them in bloom in the hedgerows.…

I water the herbs on the sleepers and in the square raised bed, though we have had a fair bit of rain this week and our tubs are filling. But one mustn’t…