Alan Titchmarsh is one of the best-known horticulturalists in the country.
Since starting out as a gardening writer in the 1970s, he's become a mainstay on the BBC's Gardeners' World, a presenter at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, and most recently, President of the National Garden Scheme, taking over from Dame Mary Berry.
But have you ever wondered what tricks the illustrious gardener employs in his own plot?
In a recent column for Country Life, Alan revisited a gardening hack he wrote about in one of his early pieces of writing.
In a piece he wrote for Amateur Gardening magazine, titled 'Sow these for summer loveliness', he described a technique he loved using in his garden that allowed him to grow a beautiful bed of flowers in a way that requires little money and little effort.
"It was a column devoted to the hardy annuals that, at the time, I was enjoying sowing in my well-drained Surrey soil, where they germinated freely and (with adequate ministrations courtesy of the watering can) provided superb floral value for money," he writes now.
"To a newly married couple, they represented a vital saving in household expenditure. For the price of one hardy perennial, I could have half a dozen packets of seeds and quite literally hundreds of plants."
Back then, Alan would sow a colourful mix of purple corncockle, deep pink Agrostemma githago ‘Milas’, the annual cornflower varieties 'Blue Diadem' and 'Black Ball', and "good old" pot marigolds, with bright orange blooms.
To get the best results, Alan recalls, he would sow the seeds in early April, when the temperatures are typically mild, picking a spot where they would get plenty of sunlight.
"There is no point in committing them to an early burial in cold, wet earth," he writes. "They will germinate and grow far more rapidly if you wait for the ground — and the air — to warm up, but they will also stand lowish temperatures once they have started to grow."
Having rediscovered his own delightfully simple sowing trick, Alan says, his kitchen garden is "as pretty as I have ever known it".
Lavender garden edit
Lavandula angustifolia 'Hidcote'
Lavandula angustifolia 'Munstead'
Wanda Sachs is the Multiplatform Writer for Country Living and House Beautiful, exploring the latest in gardening, wildlife and sustainable living alongside interiors and property. She is particularly interested in human-interest stories, the intersection of design and pop culture, and the evolving relationship between urban and rural life. Previously, she served as Associate Editor at The Berliner in Berlin, where she reported on culture and fashion. Wanda studied English and German at the Goethe University Frankfurt and Exeter University.
