The Gardening Mind

I think I might just have found my new house. THE SURVEY WAS OK. I can’t wait to tell you more, but in the interests of not jinxing things, for the moment I’m restraining myself, which, as usual, is very, very difficult.

Tricks and tips to make a garden feel bigger We’re fully into it now, aren’t we - it’s September, and I’m committed to it being autumn. This means that, here in the UK, it’s the season of Wearing The Wrong Clothes Every Day: it’s cold when you leave the house first thing, doing the Spider Dance as you wave your arms about to avoid going smack into a cobweb (I duck if I can, and if it’s too late, I always have to apologise to the spider.

Have you been out in the garden trying to figure out what to do or where to start - especially if you left it pretty much alone over the summer due to heat and drought? Are you thinking about what to do next? Maybe you’re embarking on gardening studies or maybe even design studies? OR, like me, you might be planning a new garden. Very exciting, but also a bit daunting: I know just how many design options there are, and I will have to plump for one of them. There's no single solution to a garden.

GAP Photos/Howard Rice - Cambridge Botanic Gardens There are six weeks to go before I move, and it has finally sunk in: I’ve got to sort things out. This is the house that I’ve lived in for the longest period of my life, and the accumulation of STUFF proves it. As I walked round yesterday with a removals estimator, my heart lurched all over the place. What am I doing?

Illustration: Anna Lena Feunekes for The Gardening Mind. Zoom in if you can - I love this collage! I know that technically there are two days to go before September starts, and as a big fan of long, light evenings, I’m definitely not wishing for autumn just yet. But the rains have arrived, and you could almost see the trees sighing in relief as their weary branches gave little shrugs of surprise.

Before I start: WE HAD RAIN. Never have I been so excited to see wet seat cushions: And then guess what? It carried on raining: Some remarkably buzzy energy has arrived with the return of the rain and greyer skies, and I realise there’s just so much I want to tell you about that I have absolutely zig-zagged everywhere in this article: gardening on a budget, design, plants, gardening basics, pretty bouquets, and more.

Lots of photos today, which might not all come through if you’re reading this on email. You’ll be able to see it all in the browser or app. The sun continues to beat down here in this corner of the UK. Having been very nonchalant about the whole coping-in-a-heatwave business, even I succumbed yesterday as we ended up in the Cotswolds and sloped round Hidcote Manor and Kiftsgate Court on basically what seemed like the surface of the sun.

If you’re new to The Gardening Mind, thank you ever so much for joining this lovely community, now entering its fifth year here on Substack. It exists purely due to the support of its readers - thank you. You’ll find a lot here - I’m sharing everything I’ve learned about gardens and garden design over the last thirty years years: have a scroll, check out the home page and the Index, join in the Chat…… or just dive in for a lucky dip.

Before you start, this is a Bumper Edition. There are lots of photos which might not all show up in your email, so please do head here to read it in full. If you’re anything like me, you might have got to the end of this first week of August and wonder what’s going on - is it summer? Is it autumn? What should I be doing? Am I on holiday? Can I get through the book pile? Can I finish a manuscript for a book project that I’ve been working on since 2022? Basically - it’s summer.

Hello, and finally, I’ve been out once more, Digging Around with garden-y Substack writers. First though, if you’re new to The Gardening Mind, welcome. There’s all sorts going on here in this gardening community. We’re number 2 globally in the Home & Garden section, we have members in 177 countries, and we are now in our 5th year - I say WE because this…