Autumn is settling in and, if we’re honest, we start to spend less time actively gardening. More time for the soil to grow what it really wants, more time for us to start dreaming next year’s garden into being…

We salute summer as it reaches its peak and, just as quickly, begins to pass the baton on to the next season, and enjoy a reading from the introduction to Jack’s book, from which the episode title’s been shamelessly pinched

Chef, grower, teacher, herbologist – it’s always hard to categorise my guests on the Gardens, Weeds & Words podcast and Maya Thomas is no exception. Suffice to say that a love of plants or people – and usually both – infuses everything she does, and so where better to focus our conversation for this episode than on the subject of herbs…

Love it or hate it (and why would you hate it?), the RHS Chelsea Flower Show offers a fantastic platform for charities to promote their work. In this episode, I’m joined by Hattie Ghaui, CEO of Project Giving Back, whose Gardens for Good Causes initiative brings together designers, landscapers and charitable organisations, creating headline-grabbing show gardens with the power to bring change where it’s most needed.

There’s an intricacy and generosity of spirit to the work of floral artist and broadcaster Hazel Gardiner that betrays her love of story telling, as well as hinting at her ability not just to absorb energy from the creatives she works along side, but to amplify that vibrancy and share it back around. In this episode she joins me to talk about her varied career path, the roots of her artistic approach and, of course, her garden

To celebrate the publication of my first book, To Stand and Stare: how to garden while doing next to nothing, I’m having the tables turned on me. For this episode, I find myself on the other side of the mic as friend of the podcast Alice Vincent drops by to interview me about how the book came about, how it relates to my wider work, and why a title that’s very much not a ‘how to garden’ manual still manages to have so many ‘how to...’ sections in it.

I’m so delighted to have florist and grower Milli Proust on the podcast for the last episode of 2022. Her book From Seed to Bloom was one of the highlights of the year for me, as it has been for many others, and the images of her floral arrangements and beautiful growing space in West Sussex continue to provide a gorgeous backdrop to pleasant reveries. We discuss her emphasis upon the seasons and the land, on story and theatre, and the impact that becoming a mother has had on her work. And laugh, a lot.

Susanna Grant’s mission seems to be to make gardening easy for people; particularly people who live in the city, where space is at a premium and buildings huddle together to crowd out the light. From behind an unassuming garden gate in Hackney, her courtyard store Linda glows, filled with the kind of lush, green growth that thrives in these conditions. We talk of shade and weeds, community gardens and cake, perennial window boxes and sending worms through the post.

“Something I believe is missing from conversations about the climate crisis is the need for us to build a stronger emotional connection to our planet and each other”, writes Hannah McDonald in the wake of COP26. In this episode, we consider how our readiness to engage with the great outdoors not only benefits our own sense of wellbeing, but lies at the heart of necessary and urgent change.

It’s more than two years since I first looked at Stihl’s cordless hedge trimmers for the blog, and in that time the range has grown and consolidated its position at the head of a crowded field of battery powered garden equipment. More to the point, these machines have become part of my everyday toolkit, none more useful to me than the two reviewed here.

Everything in the garden reminds me of food, but never more so than now.

Lockdown happened, and interest in growing your own food exploded. No-one’s going to become self-sufficient over night, but being less reliant on vulnerable systems seems more attractive by the day. Which is all very well if you have acres, but what if you garden is a balcony, or a window ledge? With this book published today, Claire Ratinon shows us how to grow fresh, exciting vegetables in the smallest of spaces.