I've written posts about growing hydrangeas {here} and dahlias {here} but I feel like I've promised you this post on roses for the past couple of summers and haven't got around to it! This Spring, as I was planting two new roses out that I got as Birthday presents, I finally took some photos and then looked back through my archives to find lots of my favourite rose photos. You see, roses are one of my favourite ever flowers to grow and are definitely the easiest and lowest maintenance out of hydrangeas and dahlias. Yes, they might cost a little more to begin but they don't have to, and once planted, should last for years and years giving you at least one full set of blooms every year. I thought I'd put together all of the tips I've learnt from growing roses over the past six or so years....

After last year's crazy hot, dry summer that lasted for months on end, parts of our garden needed a bit of an overhaul. Some of the garden had become too baked, the grass at the end of the summerhouse like straw and the beds to the far left and right under the trees, too dry to plant much. The meadow/fruit tree area that we'd planned to be all wild and whimsical next to the summerhouse just looked a bit of a mess and it was an area that we weren't using to it's full potential. It's also the area of our garden which gets the most sun throughout the year, when in the early Spring/late Autumn and throughout winter, the rest of the garden is shaded by the house. When we were in Palm Springs at the start of this year, I enjoyed working out outside in the mornings by the pool, Ben and I were walking one day and were talking about outdoor living and our plans for the garden when I realised that we either have wet grass in the mornings or gravel, neither of which are ideal for a workout mat without slipping or getting covered in wet grass! I know, I know, first world problems but it would be really nice to have a garden that suits our needs/wants given that we had the space to do so. So then came the idea of decking the bottom of the garden, which would solve the messy/dry part, hide the dark trees at the back and our compost heap, give us an area for a raised bed for planting some salad/veg at home and create a large space that our new baby can happily play on without grass/gravel and we can entertain on and enjoy the sunshine when the rest of the garden is shadowed

With this fresh new year, as much as I loved the Christmas decorations, I couldn't wait to have a big freshen up and give a nod to Spring with some fresh bulbs and greenery in the house. Since posting some photos of these on Instagram, I had some requests for a blog post how to. In truth, there's not all that much to it, bulbs already have their energy and food within them so it makes it super simple even if you're not a gardener... 

It's Halloween tomorrow {!!} and it's suddenly just crept up on me. If you know anything at all about me, I'm sure you know what a huge pumpkin lover I am. In fact, just a huge halloween lover in general. Spooky houses, fun costumes, pumpkins and pumpkin spice everything please. I'm slow in blog writing this October {have probably spent too much time on Instagram instead...} so please forgive me, but I wanted to get these photos up before this month of the pumpkin ends.

My parents got a pizza oven this summer {although I should note that it's not just any old pizza oven, it's a Morso Forno Danish designed pizza oven!} and we've been having some fun, family pizza nights ever since. I posted a photo of this on Instagram the other night, and so many of you were interested in finding out how easy it is to use and what we think of it. I also wanted to share notes on our favourite pizza recipes for us to look back on after a few weeks of trial & error... 

A long, overdue catch up post on our allotment this year. I think this is our fifth summer with it?! And we love it more than ever. To have our own piece of land to nurture and cultivate, to switch off from everything, to sow and to water and to harvest. My favourite part is the harvesting but we just love spending time there. It feels different to our garden and it's an evening ritual to walk there most days. Everybody asks how we find the time, it's very much Ben's project so I can't really take much credit other than choosing what to grow and picking the produce! But it doesn't take too much once it gets going. It's his version of going to the gym, I go running, he goes to the allotment. This year with the hot weather it's gone CRAZY. Most things are flourishing, the paths are overflowing. Luckily it's next to a river so the water table has remained high enough that we don't need to stress about watering everything all the time. If you're new to allotmenting or this blog, you can find all of my past posts on it here, here, here and here. This is more of a photo catch up from the season so far for us to look back upon, and that you might want to have a look at if you're into that kind of thing...

Last week I took Ben for a bit of a different date at Belmond's Le Manoir Aux Quat'Saisons in Oxfordshire. It's somewhere that's been on our bucket list for a long time with our love of both food and gardening. Famed for Raymond Blanc of course, the two michelin starred restaurant and expansive kitchen gardens which were way ahead of their time before the trend for growing your own produce came about. As well as the restaurant and it's famous Raymond Blanc cookery school, there's also the Gardening School which we were there for to learn more about growing our own vegetables and make the most of our allotment plot.

A few of you have got in touch to ask about our greenhouse! I haven't shared much with it since it was finished last September but her first growing season is fully underway. You can see how it was built in this post here but lots of you wanted to know how we use it. So I thought I'd share our first year with it so far... 

England is at her very very best right now. We're two weeks into a heatwave that shows no sign of shifting, full sun and 28c+ on the weather for the next ten days. No cloudy skies, no muddy fields, no grey. I LIVE for days like these. When you wake up and can smell the heat in the air already, you pull out clothes you normally only wear on holiday, you have so much energy and want to be up and out, savouring the outdoors. You cover over 20k steps daily without even trying, you pick summer produce from the allotment, you eat summery berries, frozen watermelon, you BBQ, this is no time for proper cooking that will make you hot. You enjoy the garden you've worked so hard to create, you eat dinner alfresco, hell you eat breakfast and lunch alfresco as much as you can, you go on picnics, you go to the markets, you sunbathe and soak up the Vitamin D, your skin goes brown and you wear sun hats and picking up your sunglasses on the way out the door becomes second nature. You only wear socks to run, instead picking out sandals each day, your legs haven't been covered in weeks. You sleep with the windows wide open, waking up to that bright sunlight as the sun rises at 4am every morning. You feel like you're on holiday in your own garden. You have less spare time and you sleep less {longgg light days}, battling to keep the garden watered and fit the allotment in but you wouldn't swap it for the world. You know it won't last forever. But that makes it all the more special. Please stick around summer! {and if you're reading this in Winter on one miserable February day where summer feels world's away, KNOW that this will come around again}. - note to readers, this is full of photos I've shared on my Instagram stories over the past few weeks for me to look back on, but I warn you it's full of countryside photos that might be boring to some! But I just can't get enough of those views. 

A few photos of the garden over the past couple of weeks as requested by some of you fellow garden lovers on Instagram {and mainly for me to look back on as a record to remember what flowered where!}. This is our third summer here, and I think it's the prettiest yet. Definitely also the wildest yet, we haven't had much time to spend on the borders recently but I feel like as long as the grass is neat & well cut, the wild beds and overflowing flowers {and probably more than a fair share of weeds} compliment each other. It's just been SO hot and dry these past few weeks though so everything could really do with more watering, or some really good rain. If you have any specific gardening questions then please let me know for future posts, a post dedicated to roses is still on my to do list but most questions that get messaged tend to be able to be answered with these past garden posts {like how we planted/planned the borders here or what jobs to do when - this post}. 

I'm sure you know what a huge fan of Chelsea Flower Show I am after these past posts? Last week I was lucky enough to be invited with Joules for the day and I thought I'd share a few photos, and some of the gardens which inspired me this year.

Happy Friday! Are you as excited as I am for the Royal Wedding this weekend? And the weather forecast for that matter. This week I've been sharing outdoor living inspiration with The White Company and we've talked about hosting in general {and flower prep} along with BBQ and recipes. Today I wanted to quickly share some ideas for your garden decor, probably the most important 'room' of your house in the summer. I know that for us, the minute that it's a warm sunny day, we just want to spend as much of it as possible outside. For hosting dinner with friends & family, making an outdoor office or just taking five minutes to soak up a little sunshine in the middle of a busy day, I'm sharing the products that we can't be without this summer...

If you know anything about me at all, it's probably that I'm one of the world's biggest hydrangea fans. My Grandma jokes that every time she comes round, I've bought another one and potted it up in the garden! Whether it's buying a bunch of hydrangeas from the flower market or filling my garden with them, you may say that I have a bit of a thing for hydrangeas. It's funny because they were out of fashion for so long, especially around my Grandma's era which I think is why she's so surprised that I love them so much. But I can't imagine a garden without them and they feel so French farmhouse. I get a lot of questions about how to grow them but I actually find them one of the easiest, and lowest maintenance plants to keep {apart from the watering} so I thought I'd give you some of my top tips for everything hydrangea. From where to buy, to planting them, to keeping them alive, tips for keeping them in vases and drying them. 

Is there anything that screams October and Halloween more than pumpkins do? And is there anything more instagrammable for those autumnal few weeks of the year more than the mini white variety? If you know anything at all about me it's probably that I'm pretty mad on this time of year {one of the reasons we're flying to New York tomorrow is for their fall celebrations and pumpkin farms} and in particular growing pumpkins ourself at our allotment. I've been posting photos of our harvest recently and been getting so many messages asking if I'll write a blog post about how to grow them. So here are my tips, talking every stage of the growing process along with all of our favourite types, which incidentally have super cute names, from Baby Boo to Jack be Little to Crown Prince.

I've been dreaming of the day that our patio is finished enough to set up a table and chairs on to sit out in the garden. We moved into the house last August and had to endure a crazy paving area and ugly rear of the house that we didn't even try to pretty it up for the end of last summer as most of it was getting knocked down. Then over winter we had the kitchen extension done and now it's mid summer 2017 and we have the outdoor area I've been dreaming of! I'm going to share the full patio/gravel/landscaping transformation soon but for now I'd love to share some quick accessories I've used to make the garden feel more summery for outdoor living with my favourite - The White Company {and most of the below is in the sale right now with an extra 10% off sale here with code - AR050 -  go go go!}.