A return to Gardening just for the shear pleasure of it. I love gardening and simply being in the garden. Here, within this site, I share everything I know, everything I've learned from my gardens, helping you create the garden of your dreams, healthy, balanced, and a home to both you and nature. Whether you're a seasoned gardener or just starting out, explore the Blog, Gardening Tips, and FAQ for advice, creative ideas, and practical tips.
"If gardening feels like a chore, you're doing it wrong!"
Of course, plants are essential. No one would disagree with that! However, there is another element that makes a good garden. Arguably underrated but most assuredly subjective. That element is the Accessories, i.e. the design embellishments, garden decor, those finishing touches.
Planting bulbs in your borders brings an early heart-warming cheer, heralding the changing of the seasons, as we slowly meander our way out of late winter. Even though they’re tiny, those first snowdrops, cyclamen, aconites, and crocus are worth more than their weight in gold. Especially after weeks of dull browns and greens within a fairly lifeless garden. The structure of evergreen hedges and topiary have served an important purpose but now the interest is waning. Those early gems, much loved by us gardeners desperate for life and colour outside those foggy rain-drenched windows are loved even more by emerging bumblebees, drowsy and famished after a winter’s hibernation.
Spring bulbs truly lift our spirits after a long winter. Their oh so cheery dispositions break the monotony of greens and browns and suddenly, we have colour! Yellows, blues, pinks, reds, purples! We transition from monochrome to technicolour. The wonderful thing about container displays is that you can shuffle pots around to keep the display looking its absolute best. When those early flowering crocus, iris, and early daffs are fading, swap them out for the musacri, richly coloured tulips, majestic crown imperials, and pom-pom alliums. With a little forethought in planning and planting, you can have a display in bloom from February right through to June.
There is something utterly magical about bulbs. Take a handful of dry and shrivelled lifeless bulbs, throw them in the ground, wait a few weeks and, like the mythical beanstalk, they burst from the ground with a bounty of beautiful blooms. Flowering bulbs are more popular than ever and for good reason. The range of species available to us humble home gardeners has increased dramatically. Alongside the species there are a staggering number of bred cultivars with a truly bewildering array of forms and colours. Did you know there are over 3,000 tulips cultivars alone?!
The smallest of our five main gardens is regularly shown the BIGGEST love on Instagram. The Courtyard Garden a.k.a. The White Garden was inspired by visits to Sissinghurst Castle Garden and Great Dixter. A combination of Vita Sackville-West's renowned 'White Garden' and the iconic entrance porch to Dixter. Consisting entirely of pots and planters, the colour scheme is whites and greens, with a subtle infusion of pinks - only because it’s rare to find pure whites.
As the fields and verges take on those familiar biscuity bronzing hues, heralding late summer, our gardens can sometimes feel rather flat and monochromatic. The colour drains and we're left with just the greens and faded blooms, facing one of the biggest challenges for all (non equatorial) gardens...
For 20 years, I worked as a freelance wildlife photographer, author, and safari guide, but gardening has become such an overwhelming passion, I am now making the transition to garden photography and gardening content creator via Instagram and YouTube.
Although I've only been gardening seriously for about seven years, I am a very fast learner and, once I get my teeth into something, I’m a voracious reader and researcher. But I learn best by doing! And so my gardens have become my school where experimentation, trial and (lots of) error are all encouraged.
I've been inspired by so many gardens and gardeners, such is the accessibility to a world of gardening these day. I can't say who's influenced me the most. The traditionalist in me was truly inspired by Monty Don. During the depths of my depressive episodes, I clung to his 'The Complete Gardener' book when I shut myself away, fervently taking notes and clinging to the hope of Spring and better times. What I enjoyed most was the wholesome holistic approach where pleasure in the process is key, pests and weeds come and go, but it's the pleasure in the everyday.
The contrarian in me follows Charles Dowding - a man that rightly challenges garden dogma and whom truly transformed my gardening with the no dig (minimal soil disturbance) approach. Then there's Fergus Garrett, Head Gardener at Great Dixter. Visiting that garden filled me with so much joy and inspiration and I know Christo had a major influence overall, but it's the garden... the only garden where I felt at home. Instantly at home.
In my garden, I only use peat-free compost. I never use pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, or synthetic fertiliser. I believe in no-dig, feeding soil life, mulching, composting, and organic wildlife friendly gardening.
I actively encourage nature into my garden. I plant for pollinators, making sure I have a variety of flower forms with the garden as whole enjoying a long flowering season. I encourage the birdlife with a little food, clean bird baths and nest boxes. There are always log piles and cover for insects and other invertebrates. And not forgetting the Embankment! 40metres of bank, left wild and weedy with nettles, alkanet, sorrel, wild primrose, herb Robert and is home to solitary bees, bank voles, and frogs.
A carefully curated selection of images and gallery prints. Each image Is available for commercial licensing. If you're looking for images for publication, please contact me directly and I can help search through an extensive catalog. Images protected by Copyright © Elliott Neep
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Wildflowers, fungi, birds, bugs, and mammals
International and British wildlife and wild scenes
