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Real gardens: Blair Castle

November 20, 2009
by F&F
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I fell in love with the Hercules Garden at Blair Castle in Fife when I was a young teenager. It wasn’t difficult: a walled garden complete with bothy, Japanese bridge, a folly, vegetables beds and fruit trees running down in stripes to a lake. The be
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Real gardens: Claire’s Garden

October 22, 2009
by F&F
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There’s something marvellous about a garden built from scratch, especially when that garden used to look so very strange. Claire Sutton knows all about this. When she arrived in her derbyshire garden five years ago, it was a playground of the bizarre
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Real gardens: West Dean Gardens

August 7, 2009
by F&F
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When the lovely Debbie Webber from Carrots and Kids visited West Dean, she was so taken by the extraordinary kitchen garden that she decided to share her gorgeous photos with Fennel & Fern readers.
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Real gardens: Kingsbrae Garden

June 29, 2009
by F&F
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Kingsbrae Garden in New Brunswick, Canada, was once destined to become a dog-training facility. As much as we love dogs at F&F, we’re glad that never came to fruition, as the garden is stunning. A bold planting scheme, running from serene Liatris
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Real gardens: Chiot’s Run

June 10, 2009
by F&F
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Some gardeners have an extraordinary ability to make even the most mundane tasks look magical. Take Susy Morris. Her small Ohio garden – better known to readers of her gorgeous blog as Chiot’s Run – is groaning under the weight of food fo
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Real gardens: The stylish allotment

May 11, 2009
by F&F
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What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of allotments? Is it miles of black plastic sheeting and mildly terrifying cabbages? Or a shed made out of rotting planks and half a telephone box? Allotments are amazing, but let’s face it, th
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Real gardens: The Manor House at Upton Grey

May 9, 2009
by F&F
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When Rosamund and John Wallinger moved to Upton Grey in 1984, they found the Manor House they had bought derelict. The garden was over-run with brambles and untamed trees and shrubs. “There were virtually no borders,” says Rosamund. “The pond had com
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Real Gardens: Diana’s Garden

April 27, 2009
by F&F
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One day Diana Harrison sat amongst the tall phlox and the stonecrop in her garden. After a few minutes she found herself surrounded by hordes of honeybees. “They were too preoccupied to even notice me,” she observes. “It was an experience beyond word
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Garden from Scratch #3: The best laid plans…

October 26, 2008
by F&F
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Finally, we have a formal plan for the Garden From Scratch. Until now, we’ve been working from scribblings on post-it notes and at the edge of notebooks. The ink has barely dried before the work has commenced. In fact, a rough sketch in August
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Real Gardens: Cheryl Pedemonti’s Garden

September 13, 2008
by F&F
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Cheryl Pedemonti is a lazy gardener. Or at least so she claims. “I joke and tell people that I am an organic gardener because I am a lazy gardener,” she says. It’s hard to believe when you look at her plot, though. The beds are overflowing, and Chery
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Guerilla Gardening

July 19, 2008
by F&F
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  This isn’t your typical real garden. For starters, real gardens belong to someone. This doesn’t. It belongs to the local council, and not the gardener. But this hasn’t put off Richard Reynolds and his team of guerilla gardeners, w
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Real Gardens: Darren Graham’s Garden, Co. Fermanagh

July 18, 2008
by F&F
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There aren’t many gardeners who can name wild goats as one of their chief pests, but in Darren Graham’s garden in County Fermanagh, they’re akin to slugs. It’s less of a surpise when you see the landscape surrounding the plot:
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