I’ve always found weeds intriguing. Just what it is about them that turn us mild mannered gardeners into crazed maniacs, using weapons of mass destruction such as weed killers and flame throwers to try and eradicate them from out gardens. Many of the plants we refer to as weeds are actually UK native wildflowers…
Author: Brian Cunningham
Gardener & Consultant
Dundee Botanic Garden facing closure
How sad it was to read that the Dundee Botanic Garden is looking at closure and its skilled garden staff amongst 190 others across the whole University of Dundee facing redundancy as part of measures to cut costs. If the proposal was to go ahead, what a loss to the Dundee community and visitor experience…
June update in the veg plot
As much as it’s part of my living to encourage more people to garden, and in particular grow their own veg, I’m fully aware of the commitment it requires. Hence this is first time in a few years I’ve been making the required effort myself. There’s a couple of reasons for this, I find…
Dementia-friendly gardening
When I first started my gardening career all these years ago, pretty much thirty-six years to the day, never in a million could I have imagined just what it would go on to give me, considering at that point I shared the stereotypical attitude of many that gardening was only about grass cutting and weeding….
Evergreen shrub pruning
I’ve spent quite a bit of time this spring focusing on my shrub plants. Lots of these do their thing at the end of the winter and into spring before they drift off to obscurity and to the back of our minds as we instead focus more on the likes of our fruit and vegetables,…
The Seaside Garden
As an island nation with many miles of coast line, some of our fellow gardeners are doing so in some pretty challenging and at times hospitable conditions. I grew up in St Andrews on the east coast of Fife. Although not right down by the beach I still experienced the cold har rolling in from…
Peas and beans in the veg plot
Well, would you believe it. Despite writing in the papers and going on national television via the Beechgrove Garden television programme telling everyone else how important it is to have some horticultural fleece at hand and keep an eye out for damaging frosts on early plantings of veg, I’ve only gone and got caught out…
My gardens spring assessment
Now that we’ve reached this point in mid-May, I like to think it’s a good time to assess just how well this spring is fairing in the garden. I’m lucky I get to garden in two parts of the country in Aberdeen and Perth, where the weather this year in both feels just about…
Gardening legend Jim McColl
Weekend edition of The Courier-P&J newspapers Oct 25th, 2024
The Christmas Garden
Woo hoo it’s Christmas time, Mistletoe and Wine! After a few glasses I’m sure there will be plenty of Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree. O Christmas Tree, how lovely are your branches? Have you decked your halls with boughs of holly? The Holly and the Ivy? Have you checked if there is a Partridge in…
Brian Cunningham 