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PODCAST

Our Plant Stories

The Times Newspaper described this podcast as: ‘Innovative and fascinating… a deep dive into the stories about all things plant-related.’ A finalist in both the Independent Podcast Awards and the Garden Media Guild Awards, "Our Plant Stories" explores how plants often root us to a place or a person, or perhaps a time when we needed the healing power of plants in our lives. Hearing another"s passion for a plant, can leave us wanting to grow it and so we always learn how to do this. So whether your

leisure home & garden

All Episodes

25:53

Missing Collector Garden Part 1

Our Plant Stories ·

2026/02/24

Our Plant Stories has its first mini series.I love following journeys - a venture undertaken over months even years. If you are a regular listener you will know this from my return visits to the Castlefield Viaduct and the proposed Camden Highline each season.The Offshoots for the next few months will follow the journey of the Plant Heritage Missing Collector Garden from sketches on paper to a show garden at the RHS Chelsea flower show.The garden will showcase the work of the charity Plant Heritage

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27:20

Clematis - Searching for Miriam

Our Plant Stories ·

2026/02/10

In this first episode of a new series of Our Plant Stories we are searching for Miriam. To be a bit more precise since this is a podcast filled with plant stories, we are searching for Clematis 'Miriam Markham'.Our search will take us from a graveyard in Sussex to a gardener's cottage on the Gravetye estate where once thousands of clematis were being propagated by Miriam Markham's husband Ernest and the owner of the estate William Robinson.We piece together this story with thanks to Sam Fry, a

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08:33

Series 4 - Our Plant Stories

Our Plant Stories ·

2026/01/06

Happy New Year.The Royal Horticultural Society have just announced that this year in the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026 - the charity Plant Heritage has an All About Plants garden. It is sponsored by Project Giving Back and supported by the Shanly Foundation.Plant Heritage is the home of the National Plant Collections and plant conservation is going to be taking centre stage in this Missing Collector garden and we'll be meeting the designers, finding out about the plants, watching the build.Our first

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36:31

Treacle and Twinning

Our Plant Stories ·

2025/11/25

I know it is a bit of a strange title. But bear with me this is the last episode of Series 3 (Series 4 will start in February 2026) and we have a couple of loose ends to tie up and an amazing idea to share.Back in November 2024, I visited the Castlefield Viaduct in Manchester and the route of the proposed Camden Highline in London. Now regular listeners will know that I love high lines and I have walked the ones in Paris and New York. (For the latter check out episode 17)I promised in 2024 that

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15:18

Gardeners' Glees

Our Plant Stories ·

2025/11/12

If you find yourself in a gathering of gardeners today they are unlikely to break into a glee...a song, as their predecessors might have done. I think its a bit of a shame!As part of the Being Human Festival - the UK's national festival of the humanities , historian Francesca Murray and musician Osnat Schmool gathered a group of people to explore these glees. A chance to be transported back to a lost world of gardening.And I composed a glee!Our Plant Stories is presented and produced by Sally

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22:03

Propagating at Kew Gardens

Our Plant Stories ·

2025/10/28

Sal Demain has her dream job and in this Offshoot episode she shares why she loves it so much.Working as the Supervisor of the Arboretum Nursery at Kew Gardens, she has many plants to look after though she does have her favourites!Her curiosity about how plants spread goes back to childhood. And she would love everyone to have a go at propagating. Just: "don't come after my job".In this episode we learn about the tree gang who go out collecting seeds and the landscape succession plan for trees we

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37:34

Richard Hayden: story of the New York High Line

Our Plant Stories ·

2025/10/14

"If you grow plants you are inherently an optimist".I love this thought from Richard Hayden, shared as we wandered along the New York High Line, this summer. Richard is the Senior Director of Horticulture on the High Line. We talk about the magic of this garden in the sky, it's history - the trains that were once delivering the ingredients for oreo cookies to Nabisco and the plants - of course the plants.Richard explains Pete Oudolf's vision for the High Line and his regular visits to edit and

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22:20

Natural Surroundings Offshoot

Our Plant Stories ·

2025/09/30

In the last episode Anne Harrap told us the story of how she came to build a series of wildlife friendly gardens on a field in Norfolk. At the heart of the plant story was a book - How to Make a Wildlife Garden by Chris Baines. In the episode she met the author for the first time and they talked about their approaches to wildlife garden.In this Offshoot episode, I wander around the gardens with Anne, accompanied by many buzzing insects which you will hear as they whizz past the microphone!She

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53:20

Anne's Natural Surroundings

Our Plant Stories ·

2025/09/16

Sometimes in life you come across a book that just speaks to you - you and the author are on the same page and they have articulated all the things you have been thinking.This plant story is about such a book and the influence it had on a young woman who was just starting out in business in Norfolk.The book is called How To Make A Wildlife Garden and it was written by Chris Baines. It has been republished several times - perhaps you have a copy. The young woman was Anne Harrap and this is her

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01:31:31

Poppy Okotcha and Adam Frost at the British Library

Our Plant Stories ·

2025/08/19

I think we're in for a real treat. Listening to Poppy Okotcha and Adam Frost talking about their gardens, their 'safe spaces', their connections to nature. And in the best traditions of the podcast - the stories of plants and people are entwined. This conversation was recorded at the British Library in July as part of the events programme for an exhibition called Unearthed - The Power of Gardening. (Sadly now over) Both Poppy and Adam have recently published books about their own gardens.

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05:04

Poppy Okotcha and Adam Frost in Conversation Trailer

Our Plant Stories ·

2025/08/14

Back in July I was lucky enough to host a conversation at the British Library between Poppy Okotcha and Adam Frost. Hear a trailer for the episode which will be out next Tuesday. Poppy's new book is called A Wilder Way and Adam's is called For the Love of Plants and over the course of an hour and a half they discussed how they came to be gardeners, safe spaces, foraging, special plants, special people and compost.I learned so much both from reading their books and sharing this conversation and

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26:18

Daffodils in July with Taylors Bulbs

Our Plant Stories ·

2025/07/22

The joy of making this podcast is that sometimes I just get to be curious which Adam Frost says is key to our enjoyment of gardening. I know that any day now Autumn bulb catalogues will start to drop through my letterbox and garden centres will soon start to sell daffodil bulbs again but I wanted to know where are those bulbs in July? And how do you grow them commercially?My thanks to Ian Clark, the very patient Marketing Manager of Taylors Bulbs who answered all my questions so you too can

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41:07

Fay's Yucca Plant

Our Plant Stories ·

2025/07/08

In 1976 Fay Ballard had just finished her first term at university and heading home for Christmas she was looking for a gift for her father who was the author J.G. Ballard. This episode is the story of that gift! It may have started as a small Yucca pot plant but almost 50 years on - it has a great story to tell.For those of us of a certain generation, the Yucca plant will be familiar. Back in the 70's and 80's Marks and Spencer had shelves full of them. But why?And along with the story of

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03:09

Trailer for a Yucca story

Our Plant Stories ·

2025/07/01

Did you buy a Yucca from Marks and Spencer in the 1970s or 80s...many of us did!If you still have it, it could by now be very large. This months plant story is a beautiful one about a Yucca plant that Fay bought in 1976, for her dad, who was the writer J.G. Ballard. She wasn't sure if he would manage to keep it alive - he didn't have any other pot plants. If you can't wait for this story remember there are over 50 plant stories from the first three series of Our Plant Stories podcast for you to

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20:53

Exploring Garden Futures: with flatpack plant pots

Our Plant Stories ·

2025/06/17

In this offshoot episode of Our Plant Stories, we step into Garden Futures - Designing with Nature — an imaginative new exhibition at the V&A Dundee. With help from one of the curators, Francesca Bibby, and one of the exhibitors. Andrew Flynn, we hear about garden design from both historical and futuristic perspectives; from knitted sculptures embedded with seeds by Alice Marie Archer to flat pack plant pots by Potr.Our Plant Stories is presented and produced by Sally FlatmanThe music is Fade

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32:09

Napoleon's Bald Cypress

Our Plant Stories ·

2025/06/03

This episode features the State Tree of Louisiana, the Bald Cypress. (Taxodium distichum). But the Bald Cypress in the plant story is not in the USA but in the Loire in France, in the grounds of a beautiful chateau.How it got there is part of the story, a gift from Napoleon Bonaparte to the chateau owner, bought back from his last expedition to Louisiana in 1802!So through a plant story about a Bald Cypress, we bring together two countries, and a moment in history in 1803, remembered by one

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32:34

RHS Chelsea Hospitalfield Arts Garden

Our Plant Stories ·

2025/05/20

This is a special week in the horticultural calendar. It is the RHS Chelsea Flower show and over the course of the week thousands of people will visit the show and millions will watch the BBC coverage of it on television.There will be incredible show gardens, conceived months and months ago with designers and growers and build teams coming together to create something beautiful. But where do these gardens go when the show ends on Saturday?This episode tells the story of one garden - Hospitalfield

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24:49

Jerry's Tulip Tree

Our Plant Stories ·

2025/05/06

Jerry Spencer's mum worked at Kew Gardens. As a child he would go there to meet her at lunchtime. Leaving school he trained as a gardener. However a period of living on the streets after he lost his mum and his home, erased his gardening memories. This is a beautiful and very personal plant story of the journey back to Kew and one special tree that played an important role in that journey.Plants can trigger even the deepest most forgotten memories so join us as Jerry and I sit beneath the tree

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32:00

The Accidental Seed Heroes

Our Plant Stories ·

2025/04/22

I think this Offshoot episode will make you pause next time you find yourself in front of a colourful wall of seed packets. As with many seemingly simple things, the story of a small seed, can in fact be a lot more fascinating and complicated than it might at first appear. So take a journey into the history and science of seeds. We'll ponder the Portuguese, spreading pepper seeds around the world and seed banks in St Petersburg, Syria and the Arctic Circle. We'll hear about the skills of

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27:38

Great Uncle Eric's Old Seeds

Our Plant Stories ·

2025/04/08

Richard Bowman tells the story of seeds salvaged from great uncle Eric's potting shed. The shed, perched on the Yorkshire moors had been untouched for 20 years when Richard was given the task of clearing it out. These seeds, stored in Oxo tins and match boxes, sparking memories of a bygone era, lead to a conversation with the Seed Detective, Adam Alexander, who discusses their potential for germination despite their advanced age. Richard's passion for gardening, is deep rooted and these seeds with

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