Meet a Devon gardener pioneering natural methods for sustainable food production | House & Garden

Just because summer’s over doesn’t mean tending your garden is finished for the year.There’s still some work to be done, and t

No matter the time of year, freshly cut flowers will always bring a sense of joy and natural beauty into any room. Fresh bouquets in water — whether grown ourselves or gifted — are normally at their best for a couple of weeks, but blooms will be fleeting and are usually thrown away once they start to lose their colour and wilt. So, a question that I’m asked a lot is simply — ‘How can I make my flowers last longer?’ The answer lies in the art of drying flowers — a craft that I’ve been immersed in for the past seven years. Dried floral arrangements will bring a different aesthetic to interiors compared to fresh — they are not for everyone — but if you like the look, you can very easily prolong the beauty of your flowers by months — even years — by creating striking arrangements that celebrate floral structures and will add interest to mantelpieces, dining tables, sideboards — you name it — throughout the seasons.

Iris ‘Benton Olive’ in Sarah Price's garden

Harry's Chelsea garden, The School Food Matters Garden

A garden with a restrained planting palette can be so exciting and atmospheric. Nowhere is this more true than in the case of the white garden. The limitations of choosing plants of a single colour means you can focus your attention; in fact there are so many plants out there that if you don’t have some sort of guiding principles when you set about designing your garden, you will soon be lost and overwhelmed with options.

The gardens at Great Dixter.

In the well-to-do town of Bedford, New York, there are a few givens: there are apple orchards and quaint bed and breakfasts, cute bakeries and amazing antiques shops and, of course, many grand estates complete with rolling green lawns and well-hedged gardens. Perhaps most impressive of the latter belongs to the doyenne of the domestic, Martha Stewart.

Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.

It’s nice to be aware of the many changes and trends taking place in the world of gardening.

Cut a tire in half, paint it and install a cedar plank on top of it. Add the handle and eyes afterward to further decorate it. Have a look at the details here.

James Lloyd-Jones photographed at his company’s Innovation Centre in Bristol, where different crops and new technology are trialled

The fragrant, vigorous rambler Rosa filipes ‘Kiftsgate’ at Kiftsgate Court