Posts Tagged ‘Books’
Come to our FREE Taster Day!
Posted by editor on Wednesday, 25 August 2010
As part of the Brighton & Hove Food and Drink Festival, Deborah Kalinke and Bridgette Saunders invite you to a Taster day at The Garden House!
It’s on Saturday 4 September! Taste the food. Taste the wine. Taste the courses…
Celebrate your enthusiasm for horticulture. Kindle an interest in learning a new skill. Savour food from the fabulous Brighton-based vegetarian food restaurant Terre à Terre. Enjoy a glass of wine supplied by The Butlers Wine Cellar, a local wine merchant.
- Bridgette will be signing copies of her recently published book Allotment Gardening
- Terre à Terre: The Vegetarian Cookbook by Amanda Powley and Philip Taylor will also be on sale
- Buy spring-flowering bulbs from a wide selection of our favourites – seeds too!
Come inside The Garden Room and browse our resource library and its wealth of gardening books, magazines and reference material at leisure.
NOTE: The Garden Room can also be hired for both work away-days and dinner parties for special occasions, menus and prices available on request.
Our Taster Day is FREE - Saturday 4 September – we’d love you to drop in any time between at 11am and 4pm – bring a friend or two and enjoy the garden and all our fun events…we look forward to meeting you!
For further information contact: 01273 702840 | 0778 866 8595
Alys Fowler at The Garden House…
Posted by editor on Sunday, 18 July 2010
What a treat – a week ago we welcomed Alys Fowler to The Garden House to lead our workshop on the ‘edible garden’. Alys, the well-known writer and horticulturalist, and Gardener’s World presenter, was as delightful, knowledgeable and enthusiastic as we expected her to be.
Alys with us shared her thoughts on how to harmoniously grow flowers and vegetables together in our own gardens and allotments – her philosophy so perfectly chimes with ours at The Garden House.
Her attitude is one of relaxed gardening, of going with the flow – as she says “Conceptually it’s a lot to get your head around, but you
don’t need to fight to make things grow.” She sees making gardening easy as the new way, especially for busy people who love their gardens but have other work/life priorities. “I’m aiming at people who don’t want to dedicate themselves to gardening, but who just want to get some food off their plot.”
We also loved her creative ideas on vegetable containers – using anything from wire baskets to dustbins!
Alys Fowler at The Garden House…
Posted by editor on Saturday, 20 March 2010
We’re delighted to welcome Alys Fowler to The Garden House on Saturday 10 July. Alys, the well-known writer and horticulturalist, and Gardener’s World presenter, will lead a workshop on the ‘edible garden’.
“I want a beautifully productive garden that weaves together flowers, fruit and vegetables in a way that mimics natural systems, – so that nature and I can get along peacefully together”
Alys’ philosophy chimes perfectly with ours at The Garden House – it will be great to hear her ideas on how to grow flowers and vegetables together – ideas and practical demonstrations on how to achieve success in our own back garden or allotment.
It promises to be a very special day here at the Garden House! Do book early as places will be limited. Go to Diary on this website for full details and booking form.
Alys started gardening in her early teens and after leaving school trained at the Royal Horticultural Society, the New York Botanical Gardens and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. She started working at BBC Gardeners’ World as a horticultural researcher, appeared at the Gardeners’ World Live show last summer and is currently filming the new series of Gardeners’ World.
She writes for all those who are interested in transforming unexpected spaces, like urban locations, into thriving gardens.
In her new book, The Edible Garden (BBC Books, £18.99), which coincides with a six-part BBC television series starting early April, Alys shows how to grow flowers and vegetables in any back garden, without worrying too much about the rights and wrongs of what you may be doing.
“I would argue that what I’m doing is really, really old school. Veg and flowers growing together is the ancient way of doing agriculture, it’s the traditional cottage garden.” (quote: 13 March www.telegraph.co.uk )
Go to Diary on this website for full details and booking form.
Sussex Prairie gardens, Henfield
Posted by editor on Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Today we visited the 6-acre Sussex Prairie garden near Henfield – www.sussexprairies.co.uk – absolutely inspirational if you love late-flowering perennials. Here the large borders have been planted in a free-flowing naturalistic style by owners Paul and Pauline McBride. The garden is sited on a farm and despite this being a relatively new garden, it’s maturity and connection with the the wider landscape is just sublime. A real advantage to using perennials: they mature and fill the space quickly, creating impact in a relatively short time.

The garden features many unusual varieties of herbaceous perennials – Veronicastrums, Thalictrums, Persicarias, Sanguisorbas, Kniphofias and Hemerocallis. Plus huge drifts of ornamental grasses and Asters, and many varieties of Miscanthus, Panicums, Molinias, Sporobolis and Penisetum.
For further inspiration on late-flowering perennials, read Noel Kings
bury’s Natural Garden Style. A very informative book – and I just love the cover design, an illustration by printmaker Angie Lewin www.angielewin.co.uk
Allotment Gardening by Bridgette Saunders
Posted by editor on Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Allotments are not only functional places to grow vegetables, they are also peaceful havens in which you can relax, meet friends and exchange produce and tips.
Bridgette Saunders is an experienced horticulturalist, planstwoman and lecturer. She runs courses on allotment gardening from her home in Brighton and teaches at City College, Brighton and Hove, where she enjoys inspiring her students to grow a variety of plants, both edible and ornamental.
Bridgette’s book Allotment Gardening, published this month, deals with all aspects of the allotment ‘experience’. How to plan and design your allotment, whatever its size and aspect; considering the soil quality; what fruit, vegetables and flowers to plant; how to tackle pests, diseases and predators; and most importantly, what to do when – the seasonal calendar.
The history of allotments is also covered: the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign during the war years, the subsequent decline of allotment-keeping in the 1960s and 70s, and the extraordinary rise in popularity in recent years.
Allotment Gardening is beautifully illustrated with photographs taken by Rhoda Nottridge.
ISBN: 9781847970220
Published: 22 October 2009
Publisher: The Crowood Press Ltd
