A practical gardening library
Fred’s Garden Notes
Short, useful notes on the things gardeners actually ask about — what to do this month, how to grow a plant well, and why something has started to look unhappy. Written from real gardens in Suffolk.
Read a note, then ask me about your own patch — that’s how these are meant to work.
🌿 Fred's Tips5 min read
Reveal what's already there
Most of the gardens I am called to do not need new plants, or a new design, or a new anything. They need to be reminded of themselves.
Read moreMore from the notes
Recently written
🌸 Plant Guides5 min read
Euphorbia — the quiet backbone of a Suffolk border
If I had to choose a single plant that holds a Suffolk border together through the awkward weeks between spring and full summer, it would be euphorbia. Not showy. Just quietly there, doing the work.
Read more🌸 Plant Guides4 min read
Geum — small, generous and long-flowering
Geum is one of those plants I keep coming back to because it flowers for longer than it has any right to, and asks almost nothing in return.
Read more
📓 Field Notes5 min read
Gardening for Suffolk care homes and community organisations
Gardens in care homes, supported living settings and community organisations are shared spaces. They belong to residents, families, staff and visitors. Keeping them well maintained takes more than a mower.
Read more
🌿 Fred's Tips4 min read
Why I often buy plants in threes (not thirteens)
One of the most common things I notice in garden centres is a trolley full of beautiful plants — but only one of each. It's completely understandable, and there's a gentler way to plant that often feels more at ease.
Read more
🌸 Plant Guides3 min read
Nigella, and the quiet case for self-seeders
Every summer, in gardens across Suffolk, nigella turns up in places nobody planted it. That is really the whole appeal.
Read more
🌱 This Month4 min read
July jobs in a Suffolk garden
By early July most Suffolk gardens are running on the edge of dry. The work now is less about pushing plants on, and more about keeping what you have looking well.
Read more
🐝 Wildlife & Nature2 min read
Bees in the hollyhocks
There is a stretch of hollyhocks along a fence in one of the gardens I look after that, every June, becomes the busiest street in the village.
Read more🌾 Suffolk Gardening4 min read
Working with clay, without fighting it
A great many gardens around Stowmarket, Debenham and Eye sit on heavy clay. It sets like concrete in July and turns to porridge in February. It is also, quietly, some of the best soil in the country.
Read more📓 Field Notes3 min read
Before and after: a forgotten border in Mendlesham
A quiet cottage garden that had slipped out of hand over a couple of wet winters. No dramatic rescue, just steady hours across three visits.
Read moreThe shelves
What you’ll find here
The library grows deliberately. Some shelves are still filling up — new notes are added whenever there is something genuinely worth writing down.
- This Month1 noteWhat's worth doing in the garden right now, in East Anglian time.
- Plant Guides3 notesHow to grow, place and look after the plants I keep coming back to.
- Garden ProblemsComing soonBrowning leaves, bare patches, things eating things — what's likely, and what to do.
- Suffolk Gardening1 noteOur soil, our weather, our wind. Advice written for this corner of the country.
- Wildlife & Nature1 noteSharing the garden with everything else that lives in it.
- Fred's Tips2 notesSmall, practical habits that make a garden easier to keep.
- Field Notes2 notesNotes from real gardens — what we did, and how it turned out.
Can’t find the note you need?
Ask Fred directly. He knows these notes, and he can work through what’s happening in your own garden.
Ask Fred