What we're up to

The Garden Collective chat a lot, and one of our favourite things to share is what we are up to in the garden. Although many of the GC members spend a lot of their time in famous gardens, or designing incredible gardens, there is something very lovely about a Sunday morning spent pottering in one’s own space.

So, every so often, when the weather is glorious and the weekend is auspicious for plants and growing, we will share some of these very ordinary things.

We’d love to hear what’s going on in your garden too, so share what you are up to in the comments.

Remember, if you are stuck with anything in your garden, you can always pop a question for the Collective in Discussions. Just go to the speech bubble at the bottom of the app.

George Plumptre

We - my wife Annabel and dachshund Queenie are staying in one of our favourite pubs on the edge of the North York Moors for a few days over my birthday. We spent today at the wonderful R V Roger’s nursery at Pickering choosing a few plants for our new garden in Gloucestershire which we moved to on Monday. The move from a central London (Pimlico) 2nd-floor flat to a South Cotswolds cottage is pretty exciting but we had to be very restrained in our purchases at Roger’s as the small new garden is a tip and in urgent need of a good clear before anything else. Best moment of the day came when one of the nursery family owners said ‘I love your articles on the Garden Collective!’

They will feature in a future piece - as will the new garden.

Simon Lycett

This weekend my sister in law is visiting - and I am going to be juggling hosting and cooking with a few hours in the garden which is DRY AS DUST! All the seedlings look reproachfully at me as I wander past them, and I will be seriously contemplating an early alarm in the morning to give me a few hours before Breakfast Duty begins!!!

Ann-Marie Powell

I have no choice but to finally empty my hotbins. They are literally splitting at their seams. And it’s not just one but TWO. Whilst I curse, swear and sweat the open sided timber number who is more skip than bin will be filling ME with yet MORE GUILT! Wondering if I’ll have the strength for all three (as I reach for the gin!)

Jane Perrone

I shall be ordering Coleus in outrageous colour combinations to go in my patio pots and propagating lots of houseplants ready for the community herb garden open day next month. Last year we made more than £500 selling plants and of course home made cakes. I have about a million self seeded English marigolds I’ll be potting up too: I adore these plants and they do well in my super-dry garden. If I get time I shall be scouting the local junk shop and charity shops for glass microwave plates as they make the best houseplant saucers (clear, so virtually invisible) and scouting out interesting containers of all kinds for displays of cacti and succulents. They must be sturdy, charming and drillable (for the drainage holes you see).

(We’ll make sure Jane shares the details of the open day next month. It sounds wonderful, and I like buying plants almost as much as I like growing them.)

James Alexander-Sinclair

Yesterday there were four swifts wheeling and screeching above the house: this is a major landmark in the life of this very small (thirty houses) village. Those small birds have just flown thousands of miles from their African holiday homes back to Oxfordshire to breed. The young they raise will not touch the ground again for about three years - eating, mating and even sleeping on the wing. The problem is that their nesting sites (crevices in old barns, churches or houses) are becoming fewer and the insects upon which they feed are also not as numerous as they were. For every ten swifts you could see in 1995, there are only three today.

We can help so, this weekend, I will be climbing up a very high ladder clutching drill and rawlplugs in order to affix a wooden swift box to the chimney. Hopefully this will proceed without accident and not only will I survive the experience but a pair of swifts will have a home in which to raise the next generation.

Sandra Lawrence

I am completing the removal of nearly all plants from my garden, having already removed fences both sides. The guy coming to replace them has just put me off for the third time, but it does give me extra time to lift as many plants as possible and get them into temporary pots rather than leaving them to the mercies of builders' boots.

It will also give me a chance to remove as much bindweed, three-cornered leek, green alkanet, dog violet and dandelion as possible.

Laetitia Maklouf

I will be faffing about with watering cans administering a weekly feed to all the pots, carefully pruning out any non-flowering rose shoots and praying for some rain!

I didn’t even know I had to do this, so we’ll be asking Laetitia for an article on this as a matter of urgency.

There is no rest for the wicked though, and at least two of the Garden Collective have had very busy weeks indeed. Here's a glimpse into the life, not of a gardener, but a garden writer...

Ben Dark

At 3.47 p.m. on Friday afternoon, I emailed back the copy edits for my next book (73 minutes ahead of deadline, let the RECORD STATE) so I’ll spend the weekend blibbering between elation and doubt.

It won’t help that I’ll also be reading a new book by my best mate from uni days, Pete Jones. It’s called Self-Help From the Middle Ages: What Medieval History Can Teach Us About Living a Happy, Healthy Life (Radio 4 Book of the Week this week if you fancy catching up!)

If it’s anything like the man himself I’ll be transported with delight and eaten up with awful jealousy - twenty years and some things never change…

Gardenwise, it's ground elder for me; penance for ignoring the soil and typing too much this past year.

Matt Pottage

Matt has been so busy this week with the opening of the Queen Elizabeth II garden in The Regent's Park (lots on the Garden Collective instagram of behind the scenes) but he did let me know that what he was doing to recover was not lying in a darkened room with a cool drink, but that he was writing his May article for the Garden Collective.

Matt's articles are wonderful and I know many people really enjoy them and look forward to them, so we feel very lucky that he makes time to be in the GC alongside all his other incredible work.

Grace Alexander

And me? I’ll be planting out hundreds and hundreds of sweet peas. I haven’t told anyone this yet, but I have been asked by the National Sweet Pea Society to grow flowers for their stand at RHS Badminton. I am ensuring success (and a great seed harvest later on) by growing a lot of sweet peas. As in, thousands not hundreds. My reward for getting them in? Watching Matt and Noel’s new garden on Gardeners’ World.

So, let us know, what are you up to?