How does your garden grow? Peter Emerson, Belfast

I was a submariner in my youth, and submariners are not good gardeners by instinct – we could grow mushrooms, maybe. Gardening came about by necessity. I was a community worker on the peace line in Belfast in the 1970s. The peace line is a misnomer: it’s the interface between the...
How does your garden grow? Peter Emerson, Belfast

Alys Fowler: myrtle

I think I’ve found paradise, or at least my version of it. It’s an island big enough to explore, small enough to one day truly know. It has its own drying bean, heady local wine and a town called “Good bread”, where they sell just that. The whole island may one day blow...
Alys Fowler: myrtle

Gardens: why we need to protect Kazakhstans wild apples

Apples tumble all over the earth, and I slide with them into a huge old tree, a gentle shower of new fruit fall. I lie back into this soft, dark earth and smell the heady scent of ripening fruit. This Eden is on the side of a mountain in Kazakhstan, where apples originally came from.
I’ve...
Gardens: why we need to protect Kazakhstans wild apples

Concepts in clay

Monday to Friday
We are amid a creative bonanza at the moment with three projects at the “conceptual stage”. Always the fun bit, where we’ve done site analysis and had the brief agreed; it is now design time.
Sitting at a round table in the studio armed with rolls of canary...
Concepts in clay

Ask Alys: your gardening questions answered

I have moved into a lower-ground-floor flat that is shaded by trees. The garden is uneven, sloping and covered with brambles. What should I plant? Grass will not do well in such conditions. You may get a semblance of a lawn, but it will always be mossy. Many woodland plants work well under shade...
Ask Alys: your gardening questions answered

Test Post from UK Oasis

Test Post from UK Oasis http://ukoasis.co.uk

UK Oasis is now on Blogger!

Hello everyone!

This is a short post to say we will be now updating some of our less important gardening news on this site, instead of ukoasis.co.uk.
It will also have a few less serious posts on, as well as some extra tips from yours truly, Christopher Biggins!

Please feel free to email me any questions.

Until next time.

Chris.