The Genus Garden

In the film Out of Africa Meryl Streep may have had a coffee farm 'at the foot of the Ngong Hills’ but at Genus HQ we are very proud of...

With the recent wind and rain we’ve been holding back a few tasks that we could do if things got just too tempestuous to carry on working outside.  Thursday was...

How many times have you moaned about not having enough time to do all the jobs in the garden?  You have a few hours, but you still can’t manage to...

This week we started to  replace the netting on our much loved and productive fruit cage.  Stage one was carried out several weeks ago when a mistake was rectified and...

The snowdrops are in full bloom and we can just see the tips of the narcissus tete-a-tete, a sign that spring is just around the corner.  Here are our top 10 jobs...

With the air crisp and the grass frozen we kept off the lawns last week and spent some time spreading compost on the vegetable beds and turning the heaps.  Our...

We’ve just come back from a couple of days at the Sports and Outdoor Trade Fair. This is held twice a year, in summer and winter, and is the premier...

Visitors to Genus HQ have been met in recent days by an incredible scent.  Along the path and next to the front door are some mature specimens of Sarcococca that...

This week our Garrya eliptica seemed to suddenly turn a corner.  Almost overnight its long silvery catkins started to lengthen and our eyes were suddenly drawn to the back of...

Our lovely woodland garden at Genus HQ is planted with a range of spring flowering bulbs, shrubs, and perennials.  Each year one of the Helleborus foetidus plants puts out curious...

It’s mid winter, but there are plenty of jobs to get on with in the garden. Here’s our top 10: Cut down tatty stems of perennials such as sedum and...

We love feeding the birds at Genus HQ. A range of dishes from fatballs and peanuts, to suet pellets and niger seeds are on the menu and keep most of...

We’ve been clearing leaves from the lawns at Genus HQ with huge piles scooped, wheeled, and deposited into our wire leaf-enclosures.  A large mound to the side of the driveway...

Not long after our first snow of the year air temperatures dropped sufficiently at Genus HQ for the pond to freeze over.  A thriving home for wildlife including toads, newts,...

It's chilly, but there's still plenty to harvest, prune and tidy, and this is a great time to prepare for the busier months ahead. If your garden lacks winter interest...

We’ve had our first snow of the season at Genus HQ.  Cold blustery showers on already very wet ground made gardening virtually impossible.  Standing on the paths to avoid damaging...

Some of our favourite plants in the Genus garden are also some of the most successful; they put on so much growth that we dig up and divide them every...

Dry stone walls are a key feature of the Cotswolds where we are based, criss-crossing the hills and meadows creating beautiful field boundaries that total a remarkable 4,000 miles.  Some...

Much maligned for strangling trees and pulling mortar from house walls, ivy (Hedera helix) is a plant that we should  all try to love just a little bit more.  Surrounded...

Every autumn our Cape Gooseberries announce themselves with bright orange lanterns that go hand in hand with falling leaves, the smell of wood smoke, and the gradual decline of the...

We are very lucky to have two semi mature horse chestnut trees in the Genus garden.  They shelter our three large leafmould enclosures and provide us with a degree of...