How My Garden Grows

Once museum curator and now textile artist, Jane-Ann Walton has a particular passion for auriculas. Originally tiny alpine mountain plants, auriculas made their way to this country via Huguenot weavers arriving in Norwich and Spitalfields in the 16th century. Jane-Ann grows over 500 of these delicate, heart-stopping flowers which she displays in "auricula theatres." Each frilly nosegay of flowers is held on a straight stem above a rosette of often farina-covered leaves in its own terracotta pot. Join us on a tour of Jane-Ann's four-acre plot in deepest Norfolk to discover the unique history of these plants and learn from the mistakes of a committed expert.

During what seems an interminable wait for spring, we travel to Nottingham to meet the writer and gardener Arthur Parkinson, one of the most influential young gardeners in the UK. Our host, Francine Raymond, has known Arthur since he wrote to me as a small boy, and they've kept in touch because of their mutual love of hens. For our fifth episode of the How My Garden Grows podcast, Arthur shows us around three gardens that have been pivotal to his love of nature, hens and gardens. “I come from a world of small urban gardens,” he tells us as we stand in his mum’s tiny front garden, crammed full of pots filled with bulbs just beginning to flower under their squirrel protection. It’s precisely here – at home with his mum and brother, being allowed to forage, harvest and play unhindered in this plot – that his path was set.

For our latest podcast episode of How My Garden Grows, Francine Raymond visits Andrew Salter's magical Japanese-inspired conifer garden deep in the Kent countryside. It's a brave gardener who invites scrutiny in winter, but there is beauty to be found in the garden’s dying days, in tiny spots of colour, in the season's smells and sounds, and small signs of hope.

Welcome to the first instalment of our new gardening series, How My Garden Grows, hosted by lifelong gardener and journalist Francine Raymond. "I have visited hundreds of gardens, some for work and others for pleasure, but what excites me most about gardens is their atmosphere and the stories they tell," she says. "In this series of garden get-togethers, I want to explore real gardens going through the seasons; gardens that have been grown with passion and patience."Each garden visit will be accompanied by a feature, a podcast and a short film. In this first episode we meet creative consultant Phil Gomm, who lives in a terraced house by the sea with his husband Paul Carey. Together, they have created a plushly planted urban sanctuary in wind-swept Whitstable.