To celebrate Earth Day, we’re looking at how we as gardeners can make small changes to benefit the world around us. Nick Turrell and Jenny Laville will be digging into the topic of food waste, exploring how composting and changing our habits can make a big difference to our ecological footprints. RHS horticultural advisor Jenny Bowden offers an alternative, biodiversity-friendly approach if you find a traditional wildflower meadow just doesn’t work for you. And RHS Garden Wisley’s Liz Mooney and Pavlina Kapsalis share some inspiration for the veg patch, with some unusual crop suggestions you definitely won’t find on the supermarket shelves.

Host: Gareth Richards

Contributors: Liz Mooney, Pavlina Kapsalis, Jenny Bowden, Jenny Laville, Nick Turrell

Links:

RHS Grow Your Own Veg Through the Year 

RHS advice on fruit and veg growing  

Gardening for the environment 

This week Grace Johnson from the Hedgehog Street Campaign joins us once again to tell us more about what we can all do to support the recovery of hedgehog populations, right where they need it most: in our gardens. RHS horticultural advisor Jenny Bowden joins us with a clever money-saving tip, showing how you can make your own potting mix from scratch at home. And to round things off, Liz Mooney heads down to the veg patch with everything you need to know about growing cabbages.

Host: Guy Barter

Contributors: Jenny Bowden, Grace Johnson, Liz Mooney

Links:

How to make a footprint tunnel

Get involved in some Hedgehog citizen science

This week, we’re shining a light on some of the plants and creatures that play a vital role at this time of year: the ones that truly make spring what it is… starting with an often overlooked but invaluable contributor to the spring display - comfrey. Olivia Drake will be telling us more about this powerhouse for pollinators that deserves a place in any garden. Next, we turn to the veg patch and one of the most satisfying crops you can start sowing right now. RHS Wisley’s Liz Mooney joins us to share some practical tips on growing carrots successfully. And finally, we’ll be taking a closer look at one of the UK’s most beloved native mammals, now beginning to emerge from winter hibernation: the hedgehog. Hedgehog officer Grace Johnson from the Hedgehog Street campaign talks us through the challenges these charming creatures face, and how our gardens (however big or small) could hold the key to helping reverse their decline.

Host: Gareth Richards

Contributors: Olivia Drake, Liz Mooney, Grace Johnson

Links:

Comfrey

BIG Hedgehog map

This week we head to RHS Wisley's Hilltop where the science and advisory teams are working tirelessly to come up with solutions to some of the biggest pressures facing horticulture and gardeners today, and few are bigger or more pressing than climate change. RHS advisor Jenny Bowden talks us through an experiment she's working on to find out which plants are best suited to the extremes in summer drought and winter flooding UK gardens are increasingly experiencing. Horticulturist Liz Mooney runs us through the Lettuce extravaganza she is sowing at Wisley's world food garden. And bulb expert Muhammad Hafiz Ullah, gives us a masterclass in growing gladioli

Host: Nick Turrell 

Contributors: Jenny Bowden, Liz Mooney, Muhammad Hafiz Ullah

Links:

Choosing plants for seasonally wet and dry soils

How to grow lettuces

Gladioli

Gladiolus trial

This week we’re embracing the arrival of spring in the garden. RHS horticultural advisor Jenny Bowden applies a right plant, right place approach in her sandy, drought-prone garden in southeast England. Embracing experimentation, she’s creating a resilient, low-maintenance space that shows even challenging conditions can thrive. We’ll also be celebrating the breathtaking displays of blossom unfolding across the UK right now, as RHS expert Jonathan Newell joins us to explore the rich variety of flowering trees and shrubs in bloom, and what makes this time of year so special for gardeners and nature lovers alike.And to round things off, our resident veg growing affionado Liz Mooney returns with another allotment favourite: this time turning her attention to cucumbers. 

Host: Jenny Laville

Contributors: Jenny Bowden, Jonathan Newell, Liz Mooney

Links:

Drought-resistant plants

Drought-resistant gardening

Guide to growing cucumbers 

Liz Mooney’s top tomato cultivars

Liz Mooney’s guide to aubergines, sweet peppers, and chillis

Liz Mooney’s guide to peas

Liz Mooney’s guide to potatoes

This week, we’re focusing on the edible garden, and the simple yet radical act of growing your own food in an age of convenience. Food writer Nancy Matsumoto explores how our globalised food system is impacting both people and planet, and why women-led initiatives could help shape a more sustainable future. RHS Garden Wisley’s Liz Mooney joins us from the World Food Garden to answer everything you ever wanted to know about growing potatoes. And finally, Nick Turrell and Jenny Laville sit down to look at how you can get started growing your own – without ending up with a mountain of plastic along the way.

Host: Nick Turrell

Contributors: Nancy Matsumoto, Liz Mooney, Jenny Laville

Links:

Reaping What She Sows book

Nancy Matsumoto’s substack ‘Reaping’

Liz Mooney’s top tomato cultivars

Liz Mooney’s guide to aubergines, sweet peppers, and chillis

Liz Mooney’s guide to peas

How to go plastic-free in your garden

With the first glimmers of spring starting to show through, this week we’re diving into the theme of wellbeing – both for us and our garden wildlife. RHS Science & Horticulture Editor Olivia Drake joins us to explain why the common primrose is an essential early source of nectar for pollinators. 

We’ll also be exploring the powerful role gardens can play in our own health and wellbeing. The RHS has just launched a new science-backed Wellbeing Blueprint, designed to help anyone create a garden that actively supports wellbeing. Ashby Sachs and Vicky Shearing, who worked on the project, join us to talk about what the research reveals, and how we can all put those insights into practice.

And finally we’ll also be dropping by the World Food Garden at RHS Garden Wisley, where edibles expert Liz Mooney will be showing us how, where and when to sow peas for a great harvest later in the year.

Host: Guy Barter

Contributors: Olivia Drake, Liz Mooney, Ross Cameron, Ashby Sachs, Victoria

Links:

RHS Daffodil Diaries

Primroses

RHS Wellbeing Garden Blueprint

What to plant in a wellbeing garden

The science behind the RHS Wellbeing Garden Blueprint

How to grow peas

This week, we’re leafing through the pages of The Plant Review to explore a simple question: what can we learn from the wild?

American plantsman Daniel J. Hinkley reflects on a lifetime of exploration that has taken him to some of the wildest places on Earth in search of plants. Yet in his article he turns his attention to a small, unassuming genus growing close to home in Washington State: Coptis.

Next, David Pearce, curator of Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens, transports us to the cloud-shrouded mountains of Madeira to meet a striking architectural plant found nowhere else in the wild, and one that he’s been successfully cultivating on the Dorset coast.

And finally, Sacchi Parasrampuria and James Miller take us to Poon Hill in Nepal, reflecting on a recent plant observation trip and the lessons they brought back from the Himalayas.

Hosts: James Armitage and Gareth Richards

Contributors: Daniel J Hinkley, David Pearce, Saachi Parasrampuria, James Miller

Links:

The Plant Review

Heronswood Gardens

Abbotsbury subtropical gardens

Musschia wollastonii

This week we join gardener and biologist Benny Hawksbee in his rose beds to find out how one small adjustment to the traditional rose pruning method can create vital habitat for a key aphid predator. RHS Garden Wisley’s Liz Mooney tells us about her journey to self-sufficiency, and horticulturist Rose Holman guides us through how to cut back your ornamental grasses before the new growth comes through.

Host: Josie Harris

Contributors: Benny Hawksbee, Liz Mooney, Rose Holman

Links:

Benny’s video on pruning roses

RHS guidance on pruning roses

Become a member of the RHS 

Ornamental grasses

This week, we’re heading to RHS Garden Wisley to discover how its horticulturists are turning one of the wettest starts to the year on record into a garden that’s primed for spring. Team leader Helen Bensted-Smith shares some top tips for gardening in persistently soggy conditions, and explains why increasingly wet winters and dry summers are challenges we need to adapt to rather than battle against. Guy Barter takes us on a seasonal stroll through Oakwood, which is coming into its own at this time of year, and has plenty of take-home ideas for gardening in damp shade. And finally, we popped in to see Liam Anderson, who’s hard at work pruning the 75m Wisteria Walk. In just a few months, it will be transformed into a spectacular tunnel of cascading purple and white blooms.

Host: Nick Turrell

Contributors: Helen Bensted-Smith, Guy Barter, Liam Anderson

Links:

How to choose plants for seasonally wet and dry soils

RHS daffodil diaries

Sarcococca

Wisteria pruning video

Wisteria at Wisley