Tag: gardens

Blooming Secrets!

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red flowers being sprayed with a yellow water bottle

It’s been a beautiful, sunny day and we’ve just spent the afternoon on our new allotment – digging, weeding, planting & pruning. It’s tough work as the site has been neglected for many months, but it’s great fun.

view of our garden

Having had a hot bath to ease those aching muscles we’re now relaxing at home – and are actually browsing the web doing some virtual gardening!

garden peas

We consider ourselves garden novices really. We have a small courtyard style garden at home & our newly acquired allotment. They’re quite different spaces. One is shady & damp – the other more open & sunny. Each has it’s own distinct challenges and indeed opportunities – and we’re always happy to get personal tips or improve our knowledge through books & websites.

'Caribbean Cocktail' flowers

The Blooming Secrets website is an ideal port of call.

tomatoes, beetroot and carrots growing in the ground

It’s best described as a personalised gardening service founded by John Toepfer and Susan Brandt – a brother & sister team who launched their site after John shared stories with his sister about the numerous questions he’d received from his neighbours asking for advice and help with their own gardens.

selection of herbs growing in zinc containers

You create a personal profile which is free of charge. It then recommends products based on interests, suitability, skill levels & growing conditions.

seeds in brown envelopes and seedlings and bulbs in plant pots

The website is easy to navigate, combining shop & blog which can offer information, advice and answer questions. The shop sells a large range of plants, seeds, tools and other accessories. Every month, there are be exclusive gardening offers to purchase.

watering can and other garden tools with a straw hat

The founders stated goal is to inspire people to garden and make a positive impact on our environment. This isn’t just lip service – the icing on the cake with this website is that a percentage of each purchase goes to a gardening or conservation organisation of your choice. You simply click your preferred option at checkout – blooming marvellous!

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Customise your Garden

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split level garden deck with seating area & raised beds

A lot of people say that they love ‘spending time in the garden’, but that seems like quite a broad hobby. Spotting those five words nestled in someone’s Twitter bio usually leads to the assumption that they’re pretty up on their horticultural knowledge, but ‘spending time in the garden’ could mean anything from sunbathing to growing your own vegetables. Nobody makes a point of saying that they ‘love spending time in the living room’, because that doesn’t tell anyone anything. There might be a grand piano or an aquarium in your living room for all we know!

woman reclining in a blue fabric hammock with a lake or sea in the background

The garden is really just another room of your house, and like the other rooms, what you do with it is entirely up to you. In many ways, it’s a lot more flexible than other rooms; a kitchen will almost always be used for food preparation, a bathroom usually has to contain a bath or shower of some sort, but a garden is almost entirely customisable. Want to pack it with plant life? Go right ahead! Want to put up a hammock so that you’ve got somewhere nice to relax on a hot day? No problem! Want to turn your back garden into a miniature jungle where your collection of exotic snakes can hang out? Hey, why not?

industrial sized stainless steel bbq with drawers, cupboards & work surfaces

The point is that ‘spending time in the garden’ needn’t be exclusively for the green-thumbed. Gardener’s World may not offer any advice on turning your outdoor space into a skate park, but that doesn’t mean you can’t give it a go anyway. Perhaps you’ll start a trend, and before long there’ll be a cluster of deck-toting skater boys on Twitter whose bios enthuse about how much they enjoy ‘spending time in the garden’.

young boywearing sunglasses & playing an electric guitar sitting on a shiny red beanbag in the garden

The garden should be a place that expresses your personality, somewhere for you to do what you enjoy doing and let the world take care of itself for a little while. If you don’t want to deal with all the looking-after that flowers and plants require, then don’t plant any! There are plenty of other uses for that space, and one of them is bound to be perfect for you. You could start a garden statue collection and become the curator of your own personal back yard museum, or just grab a few bits of garden furniture and create a neat little hang-out where you and your friends can share a few drinks when the sun’s out.

painted modern art canvas of a banana leaf on a whitewashed wall in a garden

It’s time to stop leaving the gardens to the plant people and start using them however we feel like using them. The ideas that this post has touched upon are just the tip of the iceberg, and no matter what your interests are, no matter what sort of person you are, rest assured that there is a way for you to enjoy spending time in the garden. It doesn’t take much to turn it into the best room in the house; gardens may not have a ceiling like all those other rooms, but that’s part of their appeal, don’t you think?

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This article was written by Joel Dear, who works as a blogger & copywriter for greensquares. They sell all kinds of fantastic garden products, including outdoor furniture, garden statues, and plenty more besides. Joel is also responsible for the greensquares Twitter page, although their bio makes no mention of ‘spending time in the garden’.