How My Garden Grows

Columbine Hall is the home of newspaper publisher Hew Stevenson. He and his late wife first saw a very different sight in November 1992: a concrete farmyard covered in mud, but the moat was breached and the couple embarked on a lifelong transformation. They gradually demolished grain silos, buried overhead wires and removed asbestos. View were enhanced by planting 1,000 English native woodland trees, and a garden of vistas emerged …

Although many gardens we visit merit a second look, we couldn’t wait to go back and see how Andrew Salter’s garden was growing this summer. He bravely welcomed us in darkest November to see his collection of conifers, and of course they’re still there this time round, standing tall, but they’re almost overwhelmed by a vast selection of vivid, sweet-smelling summer blooms in a moat of plants surrounding his small black barn. So, what has been growing while we were away?

Once museum curator and now textile artist, Jane-Ann Walton has a particular passion for auriculas. Originally tiny alpine mountain plants, auriculas made their way to this country via Huguenot weavers arriving in Norwich and Spitalfields in the 16th century. Jane-Ann grows over 500 of these delicate, heart-stopping flowers which she displays in "auricula theatres." Each frilly nosegay of flowers is held on a straight stem above a rosette of often farina-covered leaves in its own terracotta pot. Join us on a tour of Jane-Ann's four-acre plot in deepest Norfolk to discover the unique history of these plants and learn from the mistakes of a committed expert.

Great Dixter’s garden has got to be one the most famous in the country, so it was with great difficulty that the podcast team dragged itself away from its stunning borders, flower-filled meadows and iconic features to focus on its less trumpeted achievements: its scholarship, its compost and its success in increasing biodiversity.

During what seems an interminable wait for spring, we travel to Nottingham to meet the writer and gardener Arthur Parkinson, one of the most influential young gardeners in the UK. Our host, Francine Raymond, has known Arthur since he wrote to me as a small boy, and they've kept in touch because of their mutual love of hens. For our fifth episode of the How My Garden Grows podcast, Arthur shows us around three gardens that have been pivotal to his love of nature, hens and gardens. “I come from a world of small urban gardens,” he tells us as we stand in his mum’s tiny front garden, crammed full of pots filled with bulbs just beginning to flower under their squirrel protection. It’s precisely here – at home with his mum and brother, being allowed to forage, harvest and play unhindered in this plot – that his path was set.

For the fourth episode of the How My Garden Grows podcast we travel to Toxteth in Liverpool, to visit a community that has valiantly fought to defeat bureaucracy, demolition and relocation by gardening. Over the decades, following the riots in 1981, residents formed a Community Land Trust (CLT) and eventually joined forces with creative collective Assemble to reimagine their neighbourhood. Their mission was to rescue and convert a group of ten small Victorian terraced houses, with a community garden at its centre. Two of the most derelict mid-terrace houses have been transformed into a space that doubles as a meeting place and a glorious garden. Their floors had previously collapsed, creating a three-storey high interior, and the roof was replaced with glass: the perfect place to plant a celebration of local culture.

For our latest podcast episode of How My Garden Grows, Francine Raymond visits Andrew Salter's magical Japanese-inspired conifer garden deep in the Kent countryside. It's a brave gardener who invites scrutiny in winter, but there is beauty to be found in the garden’s dying days, in tiny spots of colour, in the season's smells and sounds, and small signs of hope.

In the latest episode of our podcast, How My Garden Grows, Francine Raymond takes us on on tour of her own garden as the season turns. The year has been extraordinarily bountiful, which is why Francine has invited the founder of Wasted Kitchen, Katy Cox, over to make the most of the seasonal glut. Together, they discuss recipes for greengage gin, sea buckthorn vinegar, a fermented ginger and lemon drink and roasted cobnut dukkah.

Welcome to the first instalment of our new gardening series, How My Garden Grows, hosted by lifelong gardener and journalist Francine Raymond . "I have visited hundreds of gardens, some for work and others for pleasure, but what excites me most about gardens is their atmosphere and the stories they tell," she says. "In this series of garden get-togethers, I want to explore real gardens going through the seasons; gardens that have been grown with passion and patience." Each garden visit will be accompanied by a feature, a podcast and a short film . In this first episode we meet creative consultant Phil Gomm, who lives in a terraced house by the sea with his husband Paul Carey. Together, they have created a plushly planted urban sanctuary in wind-swept Whitstable.