Loving Your Garden - Better Gardening Podcast

What Experienced Gardeners Wish They'd Known Sooner With David Stevens

• Rod Whiting • Season 5 • Episode 9

Share episode

Send us a text

In this special seasonal edition of the Loving Your Garden podcast, John Stirland and I sit down to reflect on the gardening year just gone – and look ahead to what comes next.

As is customary at Christmas, we're joined by the renowned garden designer David Stevens (22 Chelsea medals, including 11 Golds) for a relaxed, thoughtful conversation about how gardens evolve over time – through trial and error, changing seasons, and growing confidence.

From drought and erratic weather to winter interest, shrubs as the backbone of a garden, moving plants (yes, even at the “wrong” time), and choosing trees for small spaces, this is a conversation grounded in experience rather than theory. There’s plenty here for newer gardeners, and just as much for those who’ve been digging for decades.

If you’ve ever planted everything you like and only later realised it doesn’t quite work… you’re among friends.

Link to the Video with illustrated plants and garden design here:

https://youtu.be/ru_LEJgaRhY


☘️ Topics include:
– How gardens evolve year by year
– Why shrubs matter more than fashion
– Choosing plants for winter interest
– Moving plants with confidence
– Trees and structure in small gardens
– Planning a garden around how you use it


Whether you’re listening with a cup of tea over Christmas or planning for spring, we hope this episode keeps you inspired.

💬 Got a question for John? Or fancy sending us some fan mail? Drop us a line: rod@lovingyourgarden.org

📘 Join our thriving Facebook group: LYG on Facebook

two questions and the first one is what have you got in the garden already and the second question is what do want fell into the trap that a lot of gardeners do. I planted all of the things I liked and then you realize well actually they don't really work as well as I thought they would together or they grow so quickly and overtake the place that you so I'm actually busy now taking stuff out. Sometimes I'll look and say, that plant's totally in the wrong place. What you done, John? And I'll take it out and put it somewhere. So it does move. And a lot of plants are quite happy to move. They really are. Hello and welcome to another edition of our Love in your Garden podcast. This is an opportunity for us to look back over the year with a couple of old friends, my co-host John Stirland and I was going to say our old friend, David Stevens. Even older! Good to be with you both. Well, and great to have you with us as well. And for people who don't know who David Stevens is, renowned garden designer, how I've lost count of the number of Chelsea gold medals you've got. think it was 22 or 11 gold medals. That's right. That's it. don't worry too much. Let's start by looking back over 2025. we'll come to weather as a separate thing because it's been an extraordinary year weather-wise. What about the highs and lows for you, starting with you David? It's been a year for me full of interest, full of meeting new people. Gardeners World Live, which is always a good show, which I'm always at every year. And I tell you, the one I went to this year, which I really did enjoy, was the new Rutland flower show. You couldn't get there wrong, could you? couldn't get there could couldn't couldn't I couldn't I I couldn't get wrong, I wrong, I couldn't There are great uh line-up of speakers. I was lucky enough to be one. My young lad, Adam Frost, was there. He was chatting away. Bless him. was my dad anyway, but that's okay. But if anybody wants a good show to go to, I'd recommend going to it next year. It's all going to be happening again. But I was impressed. How good the show really is. what about you? Well- David did say that the gardens always changing but it seems that I'm always changing gardens Moving from Norfolk to not back to Nottinghamshire again, I'm a Nottinghamshire lad. So I'm back home now so uh yeah that which has been wonderful because totally totally new garden totally different soil, I'm actually on almost on pure sand but it was wonderful Rod because it was so easy to dig my new pond out. If you look at the garden there's a picture now of it looking down. yeah. that brand new pond, brand new borders, brand new summer house and I brought my little glass house with me. I'm sort of working the garden now to to suit my age. Let's just talk about the challenges of the year. You hinted at it, David, the weather. had, well, we just didn't know where we were a lot of the time. I mean, we did have a very hot spell, but it was the drought, wasn't it? It was the dryness, the lack of water right the way through spring, through summer. And then suddenly we get drenched in autumn and we're completely the opposite. We did, I mean, and. I must admit this year I was quite surprised because the garden is now four years old or the planting is more or less four years old and I have tried to use plant material that is drought tolerant and pretty much all of it is and I was really you know quite satisfied with the way that most things pull through but there's a few things that are shade tolerant and need a bit of moisture that didn't do too well but a lot of the stuff has really thrived and one thing that was really good because you know I've got this wonderful magnolia. That really retains the moisture underneath it where you can grow a good range of shade tolerant plants that don't need a huge amount of moisture because it retains the moisture in the soil. I think that's a lesson everybody can learn from that if they can provide shade with trees or with large shrubs and then underplant them with species that don't mind a bit of coolness and a bit of moisture, they'll do much better. They're really will. Well that magnolia was the one that cost you £300,000. It did. was magnolia, wasn't it? Hopefully it's going up in value all the time as well. So in a couple of years time it might be worth 450, I don't know. Yeah, this is the tree that you, the house that you bought for the tree rather than the other way around. And other thing that I have benefited from, I've put my third water butt in this year. and I didn't actually run out of water. was enough. We did get the odd downpour during that dry season and that did fill the water but up again. So I was quite lucky and I did have water particularly for pots and containers. And this year, I tell you what this year, I spent about, I'll mention the name. I went down to Morrisons, which is our local supermarket. I think I spent about 50 for the Pelagoniums. and some cosmos. I put those in and by midsummer they were absolutely full of pots. really were. And you don't need to spend a lot of money do you to get a summer flowering display like this. noticed most looking at comments and pictures and discussions on the Loving Your Garden site is that the mildness, particularly the autumn, we've had a ridiculously mild autumn and we're seeing plants exactly as you said David, we're seeing plants flower that we really didn't expect to see flower at this time of year and in fact some are still in flower now. uh Yeah, yeah. m must say I've just had a Rhododendron in flower. Yeah. It's been beautiful. There are buds ready for next year, I mean, plants often do that and a shot can make them do it. You get orbrisha out at, you know, in autumn and things like that. But there's been a lot more, think, this year than before. The berry, the berry cross. The berries here! oh I live in an area called Berry Hill. I'm so looking forward to seeing some wax wings coming because they're already in the country because it's getting cold in Scandinavia. yeah, they're already down towards Tyne and Wear that area, they work their way down the country eating berries. We've got a fabulous, mailless crabapple and I've never seen it so full of fruit. It's John Downie actually, which is another good variety. The blackbirds have just started to go on to it. The pigeons have been on to it. The pigeons are on to everything. uh You've mentioned a few plants. um David, are there any that particularly pleased you this year? uh Well, I went out in the garden this afternoon because it can be bit of a difficult time this early winter phase. And you'll see on the pics I sent over that one of the ones that's really doing its thing now is Viburnum bosnansens. And it is absolutely, it's a big one too. You'll see it must be 20 foot high. was one that was in the garden um previous. It's down beyond the magnolia and it is in full blossom now. It's stunning. Really, really is stunning. Of course, a lot of the evergreens are in flower now and that's when they really start to show their worth. I've got a big, big Euonymous silver queen, big one, must be six, seven foot high and it's just for winter interest, it's awesome really. And one other one that I've put in this year as a reasonable size one, Pittosporum People often don't think about pitosporum, Pittosporum tenuifolium. It's a lovely glossy small leafed evergreen and I've got it next to a camellia which is lovely, which is even darker. with that wonderful dark green evergreen leaf, the Pittosporum with almost a silvery much smaller leaf and they work really, really well together. And there are so many plants that will work hard at this time of the year for you. My Fatsia spider's web, which I've got a few years ago, before it got cheap, it was really expensive when they first came out, weren't they? And that's just getting moving in now. And I've got that again, you see that in the pic. I've got that with a lot of the ferns are evergreen and they go right the way through with a semi-evergreen fern and it's a lovely combination too. The fern foliage against that wonderful bold fatsia foliage and in a dark corner where the spiders web really shows up and it reflects the light again. So don't forget your evergreens at this time of the year. And one other one I've got, I don't need a picture of it there, it's in full flower now, winter flowering jasmine. Jasmine nudiflora uh People say we should be able to common plant, but tell you what, it's a really useful plant for a north-facing wall or border or fence or whatever, really good plant, and it's so cheerful this time of year, brightens everything up, doesn't it? And you can just bring it in and you know, it's a good plant, really, really is good. David it's a good plant and it's a common common and popular plant because it's so good. I mean I love Forsythia, you've got a Forsythia here, yeah because it's wonderful it gives you that yellow, wonderful yellow early on in the year which is what you want. The only thing with the jasmine is if you don't look after them, if you don't prune that breast wood back, they get very dense. If you can fan train them onto a fence or onto a wall, that's when they really come into their own, I think. Anyway, it's a... certainly picking up on something you said, David, you're contrasting these plants against each other and something that if people are planning a new bed or maybe the whole garden, it's something to think about, isn't it? Is this getting this mix of texture and colour to set them off against each other in a bed? And if I'm talking, doing talks, I always say to people, it's the floral arrangers that really understand how plants go together. Okay, they may be doing it on a smaller scale, but they're looking at shape and texture and form to get together and seeing how those various plants really work as a whole. And that's what we should be doing on a bigger scale in the garden. I grow winter jasmine up a rose. I actually put one up my Simple Life rose so that when the leaves and everything and I'd cut all the rose back out came the it was holding up the winter jasmine so you used in you got two plants in one place that was great one in summer and one in winter. We've got a conservatory and it of course that goes out into the garden and it's up like sitting out in the garden and I've made that into a little sort of rock garden and I've got cyclamen Coum and I've put quite a few Narcissus, dwarf Narcissus, so I'm looking forward to all that and I looked the other day and I come racing in and said chill, chill, this flower bud's on the cyclamen Coum so I've got Neapolitanum early on and then cyclamen Coum and The thing about Cyclamen Neapolitanum, some of the leaf colours are phenomenal on them. If you peek through them at a garden center you can find some really good marbled leaves as well. So looking forward to that and I've got, what else? I've put gentians in there, see whether they work or not. You know what gentians are like, they either love you or hate you. Good acid soil, isn't it, for Genshin's really, Yeah, yeah, well, exactly, Dave, that's what I've got. But the color is just that blue is just something else. Deep wonder. m blue of gentians and mecanopsis. Mecanopsis is another one but difficult to grow unless you're That's what gardeners like, it? tell you, the grass is always green on the other side of the hill for the gardener, isn't it? You've got to try and do something really awkward and get away with it. It is, it is, yeah. Again, because we've got gardeners of all different uh levels of experience that will be watching this. uh The things you're mentioning there about looking at texture, getting that right blend of colour, of texture, of different types of plants that work together. um It takes a while, doesn't it, to really get a feel for that. I'm at the stage now where... Um, I really started to think about this a lot more than I used to. And of course I fell into the trap that a lot of gardeners do. I planted all of the things I liked. And then you realize, actually they don't really work as well as I thought they would together, or they grow so quickly and overtake the place that you. So I'm actually busy now taking stuff out, uh, to really start to thin everything out so I can, so I can see where the gaps are and put the right things together. And that's going to be my project for next year. So let's talk about next year and your, process of how gardening is just an evolution. It's never finished. No it's not and the trouble is if you're a professional gardener we're always fiddling with the garden and there's always things we want to change and things we want to do but tell you what Christmas coming up Rod if you're thinning things out pot them up they're wonderful gifts for people you know give them away if you're splitting your plants or some of the plants now or moving them stick them in a pot and you know they're great presents they really are Yeah, I'll leave them on the front and just say, free people come along and they're gone within half an hour. I'm always driving around, if we're anywhere, if there's something on a wall, you always stop. What's he got in there? And okay, they want a few bob for it, and so they should because they've grown the thing and potted it on or whatever, but that's where you can pick up some really unusual plants very often as well. You really can, that's great, yeah. Always have an eye open for unusual plants and stop it. As long as they're not on double yellow line, stop and pick some up. I don't plan too much that it's basically evolved, know, over the last few, I will have a pond there and I want me summer house so that I can just sit in the summer house, look straight into the pond and watch the dragonflies coming out. Lovely. You know, that sort of thing and see the candelabra primulas in the dampness. But sometimes I'll look and say... that plant's totally in the wrong place what you done John and I'll take it out and put it somewhere so it's it does move and a lot of plants are quite happy to move they really are and that's that's that's what the um one of the exciting things about but I've also kept a little bit just one place to grow a few veg as well yeah Well, you mentioned they're moving plants and actually this we're coming up to a really good time to move plants around, aren't we? It is when it's on days like, as long as it's not frosty, you can do it. You don't want to be putting any frosty soil around those rooms. think this time of the year always go down to the local you know shed or garden center and see what plants they've got in the red cross section because tend to get those and they'll be perfectly okay do you know what I mean that's a they're really well I've I've mentioned that choice a bit ago I got that choice and it was a sickly looking little stump I think I've got it for about one pound or something and it's now three meters high three meters across full of flower and it's brilliant so always have a around to see what you can find. It's like stopping at the roadside. Go and check, see what they think is no good in the garden centre and buy it. Because 99 times out of 100 would be perfectly okay. It's amazing Rod as well what will move. I moved a quite uh a big choice here and I was so careful I was cutting underneath and I thought I'll get as big a root ball as possible lifted it every bit of soil fell off the road. So what I did I thought I'm still going to give it a go. This was August time so I put it where I wanted it because where it was that's going to be a herb garden for our herbs. But I put it where I wanted it. I watered it every night. I gave it some water and I uh made sure every night that the foliage was wet. It's looking as though it's saying, you you've looked after me all right. I'm going to keep going. it's, I think it's going to survive. That was a tenat. uh to not to which I love, but I've also got choice Aztec Pearl as well in the garden. Aztec Pearls, the one I don't like is Sundance. It looks really chaotic, it looks like it's half dead, doesn't it? But As Aztec Pearls is a cracker, I love it. I'm not a big fan of yellow, too many yellow foliage plants. No, it's not even a strong yellow, it's a sickly yellow, that one, so... Yes, we do. Yes. Right, let's David, let's let's avail ourselves of your expertise because there will be people who I think at this time of year are thinking, right, next year, we're going to do this. We're going to get a new bed. We're going to or we're going to completely recast the garden. uh But we've already touched on, I think, one of the most important aspects that a lot of a lot of us certainly in the earlier days of our gardening experience don't think of, which is what do you want the garden? to do. is it you what do you know where John you said it you've got a summer house uh in a in the right spot where you can look over the the wildlife pond which is one another one of your essentials and you can look at certain plants. So you've already thought about how you're going to utilize your garden. That is David is that some kind of the starting point really. is, I mean there's two questions. And the first one is what have you got in the garden already? And the second question is what do want? The first one is really important. Look at your garden because you need to see where the sun swings through the day, where the shady parts of the garden are, where the slopes may be going that will encourage you maybe have to steps or a water feature or whatever. know, look and really, I'd say to people if you're going to do it, take a year. It takes a year to really know the turning of the seasons. In the summer, the sun pitches higher, and the shadow patterns are shorter. In the winter, this time of the year, nearly the shortest day of the year, long shadow patterns. Always check the soil. What's your pH? What's your acidity or the alkalinity? And don't just do that in one place. Do it in five places. So it can vary around... You'll know that, John, you can vary around the garden, you? From one place to another. in new places absolutely Do your homework first because that homework will suggest where you place your features and what you plant where because you've got your sun lovers, you've got your shade lovers, you know, you've got the plants that are going to grow in deep shade or something that dries in a dry, under a tree in a dry area. So if you take your year, oh, that's a lovely slope down there. maybe we'll just run the lawn down or that might be fabulous for a flight of steps or a sale of water feature. You know, get to know what you want. Then you can almost compile checklist of what you want. don't leave it up to the whole family. Kids are great at checklists. say, well, do we want this, that, and the other? Well, that's fine. You can always eliminate the things you don't want, but you'll hone in on the really important features that you need. Because once you build a garden, it's quite difficult to change it. I know we could fiddle with it and that sort of thing. aspect is kind of important isn't it? What's the sun going to be at all times of the year? Exactly, exactly. So there's those two questions. What have you got? What do you want? As you know, in my garden, we moved in, it looked great. Instead of putting a spade in the ground, then half a spit down was solid. So I've had to dig up rock, paving stones, stone, and, but I've reused it. And that's another important thing. I've relayed it as paths. I've done a bit of walling with it. A, I've saved a fortune. B, you carbon footprint is minimal because you're not importing material and bringing material in. So try and use what you've got. But one thing I don't like to see Rod is all the garden. like surprise. Yes. You look out and think, I wonder what's around the back of John's, you know, summer house. What's behind there? so you say there's always something to go and see what's there. I've got to do that. You'll see a picture of a long the long garden. But and we're raised a little bit when we look down. But. The exciting thing is I've now got to oh get that element of surprise. But that's... If you look at some of the great gardens, see just they get a headcut manor or you go to sitting hearse you see because it is literally a series of big garden rooms and you go from one to the other and the next one and they all have a different theme and they're all got a different shape so you get this compression of space and release of space and one area of a white garden or then maybe it's mixed planting and by doing that you spend longer in each place and you actually make the garden seem rather larger than it actually is and the same guidelines apply just the same in a small garden and a long narrow garden, mine's the same John, is ideal for breaking down into different areas and moving from space to space. And that comes onto one of my hobby horses at the moment, shrubs. becomes something of a dirty word amongst posh designers. And it's all prairie gardens now and hardy perennials. Well, they're all very good, but A, they die down in the winter. They don't look wonderful in the winter. They bloody scruffy in the winter. don't have the structure to give you space division from one area to another. We were always taught, your backbone plants are your shrubs. Then you can work in your hardy perennials amongst that and brings in the color and the interest. And then you've got your drifts of ground cover underneath all of that at the front. So you've got this combination of planting and not just a prairie that does look somewhat sad during the winter months. And height is the other thing to mention David, when you're creating this journey, height plays a big part in this. does, and it's, you know, not just with plants. Very often your trees give you a ceiling, if you like. uh And if you've got a hot sitting area, overhead beams controls the space and gives you dappled shade and allows your climbers to run up and fragrance and all of those kinds of things together. So, yes, always think of verticality in a garden. It's not, in a very small garden, and you know, I've designed gardens in town and all sorts of things, very often the area of the walls is greater than the floor. So use the walls for climbers, for planting, for all sorts of things. You can hang pictures on them if you want, or picture frames and mirrors and you think about it because that area of the wall can be really valuable. David, I totally agree with you with the shrubs. The shrubs is the backbone. The first three things I've just bought are Abbott's Wood. Yeah. And I've Iveyi, Escalonia Iveyi gorgeous, shiny foliage. Evergreen. White flowers, I love it. And I had an enormous, Spirea snow mound. was really, honestly, was 10 feet tall. I've had to prune that. And the wonderful thing, I could prune it with my hedge cutter. Yeah, I do that as well. Sometimes you have to take into account other members of the family, don't you? Because my wife, I've got a couple of spireas that I put in and they're lovely. I mean, really lovely. But uh look, you can have to move these because I'm getting wet legs when I'm walking down after it's been raining. When I'm walking down the path. Yeah. No, it doesn't happen. And the other thing, of course, with shrubs, and I've got one at the moment, I've got a big old Philadelphus that again we inherited. And it's all flowering at the top and the foliage. So this winter, uh I'm going to have to really slaughter it back. I'm just going to break it again from the bottom because it's a beautiful plant. And okay, it's going to take, you know, probably two or three years to start to get up again. But it's well worth doing. Otherwise, you know, it's all lean and horrible at the bottom and stems. And you've got to cut that hard back really. really hard back to get that new growth and that applies to a lot of shrubs doesn't it John? Yeah, yeah it does. mean, you mentioned, let's talk about those trees because people were talking about trees and people think, no, I've got room for a tree in my garden. But you can get some really cracking small trees, can't you? you know, as long as you keep them away from the borders or don't grow them right on the edge of the garden, they can work wonders. And if you get in a small garden, tree with a delicate leaf, so you're not, you know, you don't want a broad leaf tree because that would shade things out too much. Yes, sure. But in medium garden, certainly any of the silver birch, because they're a delicate tree and they let the air and light filter through them. I love Amalanchier. There's Amalanchier Canadensis which is beautiful, because again, delicate and that pure, pure white spring blossom is just amazing. And then the berries in the autumn. and berries in your and good foliage color in your autumn as well. Colors up well. And certainly for a small garden, any of the the sorbous family, again, and the males, there's tons of them that can grow in a small garden. Autumn Spire, Sorbus Autumn Spire, Hupehensis Hensis. So I've got the orange and the pink berries all giving a big show at the moment in the back garden. So yeah, there's so many great little trees you can use, all just big shrubs. Yeah, which I like here is really, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. in my soil, uh aces of, like I say, Acer palmatum straight outside the conservatory. Absolutely fantastic. It was growing right the way across and I've had to cut the roots on one side. I waited till it was nearly dormant and now it's tied to the fence hoping to get some new roots growing out because it was just... oh There was an enormous great big conifer and it would grown away. But it's looking great and I love messing around with plants. Pruning is my favourite. A lot of gardening is being bold. It's when people fiddle around with plants. It's like propagation, isn't it, John? If you fiddle about and you all look at it and stick it in, of you know, be bold, get things in, cut things back and tend to, it's like moving plants. Tend to one, you can move, you said it in August, which is totally wrong, but you can move things in the middle of August and they'll be perfectly okay. You put them in, you water them, you stake it and away they go. So it's being... Yeah, it's confident. what you're doing, Dave, knowing what you're doing and look after them. Look after them, even talk to them. Well, Prince Charles, I was going to say Prince Charles, King Charles does, doesn't he? uh yeah. He does indeed. Well, listen, we could talk forever, but we've got Christmas to get ready for. Well, whatever you're up to over Christmas, hope you have a fabulous time and uh get some great gardening presents, some new sectors, whatever it may be. And then we're all set to go in the spring and we'll get together in the spring and come up with some more ideas. at another exciting garden year then starting, it, which is always great. There's so much optimism and our membership just goes balloons in spring as people suddenly start to get their enthusiasm back for gardening. I always look at it to rod the term if you get stuck into your garden you don't need to be a member of any gym. No! absolutely right yeah yeah yeah David, David Stevens, John Stirland, myself, Rod Witing and Oscar, by the way. Very rude. introduced Oscar to you. We're wishing all members of Loving Your Garden, both podcast and our wonderful Facebook group, then I hope you have a fabulous time over Christmas and I'm looking forward to a very successful gardening year. All the very best. Yep, happy gardening. Happy gardening folks. Ha ha ha.