How to garden when you rent

Gardening with the RHS

Royal Horticultural Society

Home & Garden, Leisure, Hobbies

4.4 • 654 Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2022

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The number of people renting houses has doubled in the past 10 years. But how do you make a garden when you're faced with blank concrete paving or the prospect of having to move home in just a few months? Luckily we have barrowloads of fantastic advice from Matthew Pottage, Curator of RHS Garden Wisley and long-term renter of a house in southwest London. His new book, 'How to Garden When You Rent' is published today. Hear him discuss some of the tips and tricks he's learned from a decade turning a grey concrete yard into a lush urban jungle, all without lifting a single slab. Including advice on design, planting ...and dealing with landlords. Plus we talk to garden designer Sara Edwards, who created an innovative container garden at last year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Using IBCs (intermediate bulk containers, widely used in industry and farming) she created miniature forests, ponds and naturalistic planting, to stunning effect. All without breaking into the ground below. Useful links RHS How to Garden When You Rent by Matthew Pottage See Sarah Edwards' 2021 Chelsea garden, The IBC Pocket Forest Get RHS advice and inspiration on container growing

Transcript

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0:00.0	Get your tickets for the greatest show in Earth at an RHS garden near you.
0:06.4	Where nature puts on an unforgettable performance of colour and fragrance to delight your senses.
0:13.2	Inspire your gardening adventures and entertain your own little stars.
0:17.4	Race you, let's go.
0:19.5	Catch Springs finest scenes while you can add an RHS garden near you.
0:23.6	Book tickets online for discounts, plus under fives go free and under 16s of five pounds.
0:30.6	Hello and welcome to gardening with the RHS, with me Guy Barta.
0:40.3	When Wisley curator Matthew Potage moved his rented flat in West London, he was subjected to what you might think of as a professional gardener's worst nightmare.
0:52.3	A recently concreted over-front garden, devoid of life,
0:57.0	partnered with a dilapidated back plot, complete with rampant bamboo and rotting picnic tables,
1:03.0	and maps certainly not alone when it comes to troublesome rental gardening. According to the English
1:10.0	housing survey, the amount of people
1:12.3	renting property has doubled in the past 10 years. That's roughly one in five of us not owning
1:18.2	where we live. And in this situation, it can often feel difficult to put a stamp on whatever
1:24.4	green space that comes included. That's exactly why Matt wrote his new book,
1:29.8	How to Garden When You Rent, which covers everything from keeping your landlord happy to growing
1:35.6	plants in the tiniest of crevices. I'm so pleased to say he's joining me on today's show to explain more.
1:44.8	Hi Matt. Hello, Guy. So to say he's joining me on today's show to explain more. Hi, Matt.
1:51.4	Hello, Guy. So Matt, the inspiration for this book really came from transforming your own rented space. Yeah, it started off really with, okay, I've got a bit of an outdoor space,
1:57.2	but we're renting, so there's no point doing anything with it. Of course, I had my own
2:01.4	little collection of potted plants, as most king gardeners do. So I thought, okay, well, they can sit
2:06.1	out there and one day when we buy our own house, I can do something properly with them. And then you
	...

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