Roots and All - Gardening Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

My guest this episode is gardener and activist Ed Allnutt. Ed is part of Plastics Rebellion and the @plasticscrisis Instagram account and campaigns to reduce the use of plastics, particularly in a gardening context. We talk about the most common offending items in the gardening world and discuss possible solutions to the current accepted ways of gardening so we can make changes that better the environment. 

Links

Plastics Crisis on instagram

Other episodes if you liked this one:

If you liked this week's episode with the Ed Allnutt, you might also enjoy this one from the archives: 

Waterwise Gardening - I’m talking water-wise gardening with Janet Manning. Janet undertook a three year project with the RHS and Cranfield University where she looked at strategies and techniques currently available to gardeners to help them both conserve and manage water in a way that reduces waste and protects the environment. We talk about why there’s a need to be water-wise in wet countries like the UK, what we can do to help and why gardens are an important part of the bigger environmental picture.

Running a Green Nursery - This week I’m speaking to Chris Williams, co-founder of Edibleculture, an inspirational nursery based in Faversham in Kent. From the day the nursery was established 5 years ago, ethically and ecologically sounds principles have been employed to create the brilliant business that exists today. We talk about how the nursery succeeds where so many others are failing to make changes; using peat-free compost, gardening organically without chemicals, eliminating single use plastics from their sales output and many other initiatives that make this nursery truly revolutionary.

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Welcome to the 300th episode! Join me as I take a look back at some of my favourite episodes, some of your favourites and take a bit of time to reflect on the sheer enormity and yeah, I’ll say it, the sheer excellence of the back catalogue of the podcast!

Find out;

The Top 3 episodes of all time as ranked by downloads

How I choose guests to be on the podcast

What guest had me in tears

The ones that got away…

The episode that was a load of shit

And listeners’ pick their favourites

Links

Episode 168: Cottage Gardens with Andrew Sankey

Episode 204: No Dig with Charles Dowding

Episode 188: Huw Richards on Veg Growing

Episode 23: Esiah Levy’s SeedsShare project

Episode 136: In Search of Mycotopia with Doug Bierend

Episode 44: Creating An Ark with Mary Reynolds

Episode 281: Shrouded in Light with Kevin Philip Williams and Michael Guidi

Episode 297: Soil and Soul with Ella Malt

Episode 294: Wood Meadows with Jake Rayson

Wildlife: Jeff Ollerton, Dave Goulson, Kate Bradbury, Terry Woods, Doug Tallamy, Richard Jones, Benjamin Vogt, Ian Bedford, Val Bourne, Paul Sterry, Hugh Warwick and Kate Risely

Q&A with Sarah Wilson

Episode 178: Feeding your Soil with Humanure

Episode 247: Botanical Education

Epsiode 66: Beth Chatto: A Life with Plants with Catherine Horwood

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This week, my guest is watercolour artist Lisa Gardner. Lisa is inspired by the natural world, the connection between breath and brushwork and rare wild plant species on the edge of extinction - seemingly far flung interests that come together in a beautifully natural and synergistic way in Lisa’s work.

About Lisa Gardener

Lisa Gardner is a watercolour artist inspired by the natural world, the connection between breath and brushwork and rare wild plant species on the edge of extinction.

Passionate about wild plants and the vital role they play in the health of our environment, Lisa’s  art strives to connect people to nature, to improve their wellbeing, and inspire action to save species and their habitats.

Links

Lisa has created 6 video workshops that share her journey with Plantlife, they can be found here.
 
Short film mentioned in the interview 
 
Plantlife's important work can be found here.
 
Information on the Grassland Action Plan Lisa and Plantlife are campaigning for can be found here.
 
You can also get involved and volunteer for the National Plant Monitoring Scheme.
 
Other episodes if you liked this one:

Garden Sculpture  - This episode I’m speaking to Victoria Leedham, Co-Curator and Gallery Manager of the Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden. I visited the garden earlier this month and even in winter garb, it was beautiful, set as it is in ancient woodland with streams running through it that pour down from Leith Hill in Surrey. The sculptures in the garden are diverse in character and look stunning within the location, each one fitting harmoniously into the backdrop of planting and landscape. Victoria is responsible for sourcing and placing sculpture in the garden, alongside owner garden designer Anthony Paul. We spoke about Victoria’s work, about the sculpture garden and also how you can select and place sculptures in your own garden.


Plants as Art - Sarah chats to Alyson of Alyson Mowat Studio and author of Terrariums & Kokedama. Alyson Mowat runs her studio out of Shoreditch in London and has been creating botanical masterpieces for the past 5 years. She works with indoor and outdoor plants to make visually stunning green displays and specialises in terrariums, jarrariums, aquascapes and kokedama to stage plants in unique ways. We talk about using plants to create visual statements, finding sources of inspiration and how you can try some of these techniques for yourself.

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This week I’m speaking to Juliette Goggin, perfumery consultant to some of the most recognised brands in the world, upcycling and reusing champion, owner of the cosmetics company Hand Made by Juliette and author of the books Handmade Beauty and Handmade Spa. We talk about how you can use plants from your garden to create products that are natural, inexpensive, easy to make and that actually work. 

Dr Ian Bedford’s Bug of the Week: Gooseberry Sawfly

What We Talk About

Juliette’s background in perfumes and cosmetics

The impetus behind the books Handmade Beauty & Handmade Spa

Why should we try to make our own products? 

How are they better than what you can buy?

Do you need a lot of equipment?

Do you need to source fairly specialist ingredients? 

How you can incorporate items from your garden into your products

Prepping ingredients

About Juliette Goggin

Juliette trained in perfumery evaluation, and worked for a Fragrance house in Grasse in the South of France to develop bespoke products for niche brands in the UK. Throughout this time Juliette was always keen to learn how everything was made and to expand her knowledge, combining this with a natural love of crafting which she developed as a child forever making things from cast off bits and pieces. 

Juliette teaches classes in Natural Skincare and Candle Making, based around her Handmade Beauty and Handmade Spa illustrated books. The books also acted as a springboard to creating her own Collection of natural skincare and home fragrance products in 2018, appropriately called Handmade by Juliette.

Links

www.handmadebyjuliette.com

Instagram @handmadebyjuliette

Other episodes if you liked this one:

Sensory Herbalism with Karen Lawton

The Rose in Perfume with Mairi MacKenzie

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This week’s guest is Hawaii-based writer and grower Ja-Ne de Abreu. When the pandemic began, Ja-ne became an instant 24/7 caregiver for her hanai mother. To keep things positive, she started growing food and discovered it also grew peace and calm to their lives amid the ongoing chaos. Ja-ne had an intuition to write Sassy Food to share the inspiration that everyone can grow food at any time of year, anywhere in the world on any budget and harvest peace in the process. We talk about growing in small spaces, how growing food can foster positive connections in difficult times and what happens when the creative spark catches. 

Dr Ian Bedford’s Bug of the Week: Butterfly decline

What we cover

The idea behind Sassy Food

The climate in Hawaii and what you can grow

Why it’s important that we all grow food where we can

Seeds that can be eaten as sprouts

Grow tents to increase indoor growing space

Easy and cheap/free ways to propagate edible plants

Washing produce and some easy, natural products to use

Why is food like music?

About Ja-ne de Abreu

When the pandemic began, Ja-ne de Abreu became an instant 24/7 caregiver for her hanai mother. To keep things positive, she started growing food and discovered it also grew peace and calm to their lives amid the ongoing chaos. Ja-ne had an intuition to write Sassy Food to share the inspiration that everyone can grow food at any time of year, anywhere in the world on any budget and harvest peace in the process. Sassy Food has won two first place book awards and was a finalist in two book contests for the book cover as well as interior design.

De Abreu’s other award-winning books are a memoir with her sister and brother-in-law, Chasing the Surge: Life as a Travel Nurse in a Global Pandemic, and her debut novel, The Energy Inside Valsin’s Choices. In addition, de Abreu also published five books of the Richard Tregaskis Classics Collection under the JMFdeA Press imprint last year and will publish five more in the near future. Ja-ne’s focus is exploring the energy inside our choices and the resulting responsibilities and freedoms by telling stories through various methods. 

Links

Join Sassy Food Farms on Instagram 

Ja-Ne de Abreu’s website

www.jmfdeapress.com

Ja-Ne on Facebook

Ja-Ne on Twitter

Ja-Ne on Instagram

Other episodes if you liked this one:

Abundance and Self-Sufficiency with Liz Zorab

Patreon Membership

This week I’m speaking to Founder of Wildflower Turf Limited and author of the book ‘How to make a wildflower meadow’ James Hewetson-Brown. James has a vast amount of experience creating meadows at domestic and public scales, is passionate about creating species rich habitats which are attractive to people and wildlife and which have the added benefits of pollution mitigation and carbon sequestration. We talk about the nuts and bolts of meadow making but also about why meadows can be the solution to so many of our landscaping needs.

Dr Ian Bedford’s Bug of the Week: Tardegrades

What we cover

Why meadows can be a quick solution to bring biodiversity to previously relatively barren areas, particularly in urban environments

If you build it, will they come? Or is biodiversity too depleted already?

The best ways of establishing a meadow

Convert an area of lawn to meadow

Annual species, perennials, and mixtures of both

Do you need grass species in a meadow?

Unusual or interesting projects James has worked on

Links

www.wildflowerturf.co.uk

How to make a wildflower meadow: Tried-And-Tested Techniques for New Garden Landscapes by James Hewetson-Brown - Filbert Press, 2016

Other episodes if you liked this one:

Meadows with Keith Datchler

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My guest this week is naturalist, conservationist and writer Benedict Macdonald. Benedict has recently released a new book ‘Cornerstones’, which talks about how by restoring cornerstone species we can help turn around the current impoverished state of nature in the UK. His previous book ‘Rebirding’ was how I first came to know of his work and I’ve been a great admirer of his work ever since. We talk about the numbers of UK birds, how land management needs to change in order to stop the loss of species in this country and what we can do at a garden level to make changes.

Dr Ian Bedford’s Bug of the Week: Box tree moth

What we cover

- Do we waste money propping up untenably small populations of threatened species in isolated areas?

- Bird species that are the ‘walking dead’ in Britain

- Achieving cooperation between individual land owners to create the large scale and connected habitats that are needed to sustain populations

- Adopting a build it and they will come approach

-  Are we wasting our time trying to make a difference at the garden scale? If not, what can we do to make a difference? 

- Some of the problems mentioned in Rebirding are directly related to the EUs common agricultural policy. How could this change given Brexit?

- Ecotourism

About Benedict Macdonald

Benedict Macdonald is a conservation writer, field director in wildlife television, and a keen naturalist. He is passionate about restoring Britain's wildlife, pelicans included, in his lifetime. 

During his extensive global travel experience, Benedict has found inspiring examples of why desecrating our country’s ecosystems is both entirely avoidable and against the national interest. This book is his attempt to ensure that this generation, for the first time in thousands of years, leaves Britain’s wildlife better off, not worse, than the generation before – for wildlife and people alike.

Benedict is a long-time writer for Birdwatching magazine, as well as a contributor to the RSPB Nature’s Home and BBC Wildlife. He has been fortunate to work on TV series for the BBC and Netflix - most notably the grasslands and jungles programmes of Sir David Attenborough’s conservation series Our Planet.

Links

Cornerstones: Wild forces that can change our world by Benedict Macdonald - Bloomsbury Publishing PLC , 2022

Orchard: A Year in England's Eden by Benedict Macdonald - HarperCollins, 2021

Rebirding: Restoring Britain's Wildlife by Benedict Macdonald - Pelagic Publishing, 2020

Other episodes if you liked this one:

Irreplaceable with Julian Hoffman

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This week’s guest is Martin Harvey, an entomologist and biological recorder based at the UK CEH Biological Records Centre. His main areas of work include the iRecord online recording system, liaison with national recording schemes, and the UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme. Martin enjoys watching and recording hoverflies and I was delighted he agreed to an interview as although I know next to nothing about them, I do love seeing them in the garden and I’m always keen to find out more.

Dr Ian Bedford’s Bug of the Week: Beewolf

What we cover

The UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme

How hoverflies are distinct from bees or other flies

How many species of hoverfly are in the UK

More common species and the rarest

Mimicry

How to encourage more hoverflies into our gardens

Where to find out more about hoverflies

About Martin Harvey

Martin Harvey is an entomologist and biological recorder based at the UK CEH Biological Records Centre. His main areas of work include the iRecord online recording system, liaison with national recording schemes, and the UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme. He also teaches for Field Studies Council. Martin enjoys watching and recording hoverflies and other insects, and as a volunteer he runs the national Soldierflies and Allies Recording Scheme, and is County Moth Recorder for Berkshire.

Links

UKCEH Biological Records Centre

Hoverfly Recording Scheme

UK Hoverflies on Facebook

Buzz Club hoverfly lagoons from Sussex University

Dipterists Forum (the society for the study and conservation of flies)

Other episodes if you liked this one:

Butterflies with Peter Eeles

Patreon Membership

This week, I’m speaking to Michael Marriott about historic roses. Micheal is an expert rosarian, Chairman of the Historic Roses Group and author of the recently published book RHS ‘Roses’. We talk about what historic roses are, some of the myths surrounding them and why they’re an excellent choice for your garden, particularly if you’re looking for something a little different. I began by asking Michael about his background and how he became interested in historic roses.

Dr Ian Bedford’s Bug of the Week: Harebell Carpenters

What we cover

The Historic Roses Group and Michael’s involvement with the group

What is an historic rose? 

More common historic roses we might have come across

Disease resistance

Scent

Do they repeat flower?

Gardens in the UK where you can see historic roses

Good old rose varieties if you’re dipping your toe in the water of growing them

Links

Historic Roses Group

RHS Roses: An inspirational Guide to Choosing and Growing the Best Roses by Michael Marriott

Other episodes if you liked this one:

Pruning Roses with Richard Stubbs of David Austin