The Gardener Ben Podcast

S4E9 of The Gardener Ben Podcast is streaming now. This week is a very special episode, not featuring very much of me. In fact, the episode has been brought together by some of you who visited the garden during our open weekend a few weeks ago. The episode has been recorded by my husband, Mark, and captures some of your thoughts and impressions of the garden here at North Lodge, featuring: And oth...

S4E8 of The Gardener Ben Podcast is streaming now. On this week’s episode, I talk you through deadheading your roses and how to deal with pest and disease problems after the recent huge amount of cold and wet weather we’ve had here in the UK. It also features a personal chat with @hoover_who_better, who, after the sad loss of his mother Joan, decided to mark her passing and celebrate her life by n...

S4E7 of the Gardener Ben podcast is streaming now This week I have the absolute pleasure in bringing you a conversation with husband and wife gardening duo Bryony and Jonathan from @dakicgardendesign. After the huge success at BBC Gardeners’ Spring Fair in Hampshire in 2025, this year they’re undertaking a massive project with a huge exciting garden installation at BBC Gardeners’ World Live, which...

This week on The Gardner Ben Podcast, you will have to excuse my slightly hoarse and snotty tones, having had the garden here at North Lodge open to the public over the weekend. I’ve spoken to quite literally hundreds of people and wanted to extend my personal thanks to absolutely everybody who made the trip out to support our local good causes and look around the garden. On The Gardner Ben Podcas...

S4E5 of The Gardener Ben Podcast has lots of details about the new plants launched at the Chelsea Flower Show 2026 and features Kate @themessyallotmenteer, who from the 18th to the 21st of June can be found exhibiting her brand-new garden concept at BBC Gardeners’ World Live. Kate joined me for a relaxed conversation about the garden just a few weeks ago, and I really hope that you enjoy hearing a...

S4 E4 of the Gardener Ben Podcast features a conversation with Gwen Hines, CEO of @plantheritage. Together with @theplantingdesigncollective, they are creating a garden for the very first time at RHS Chelsea 2026 called ‘The Missing Collector’s Garden’. Plant Heritage are responsible for managing the UK’s plant collections, and if you would like to get involved in any aspect with regards to the Na...

S4E3 of the Gardener Ben podcast features @neilduncan40roseking, who is a real champion amongst rose growers. He’s been growing and exhibiting for many years and, alongside his wife, travels the length and breadth of the UK showing his beautiful roses. So, if you have an interest in how you can become involved in exhibiting your roses, take a listen to the conversation I recorded with Neil just a...

This week on the Gardener Ben Podcast, I’m joined by Andy and Richard, team members from Chestnut Nurseries, along with their sister site, Cherry Tree Nurseries, based in Bournemouth, and Paul. They are run and operated by the charity Plants and Minds. Through horticulture, they offer meaningful occupation and employment to people who have suffered long-term mental health problems, using the thera...

Welcome back to the @the_gardenerben_podcast. It only feels like about five minutes since we wrapped up season three, but welcome along to season four. We are out the gate with a really interesting and wonderful conversation recorded with @thatglasgowwitch just a few weeks ago. Geo started sharing her craft on TikTok and Instagram as a way of connecting with her daughter remotely, by creating a vi...

And just like that, season three of The Gardener Ben Podcast is all wrapped up, concluding with what has now become a tradition: a conversation between myself and @mark_hamilton_anderson. There are now 55 episodes for you to catch up on and listen to at any time. You can stream the podcast on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and Amazon Music. The Gardener Ben Podcast is brought to you proudly in associati...

S3E19 of The Gardner Ben Podcast sees me sharing with you not only a very personal and relatable conversation with Paige (not her real name), but also some incredibly personal and painful parts of my own journey. Paige is a recovering alcoholic and, in the hope of reaching just one pair of ears that may need to hear her story, wanted to share her journey to recovery with you all. Personally, I wan...

S3E18 of The Gardener Ben Podcast features a conversation with Neil from @national_chrysanthemum_society. Neil shares how his passion for chrysanthemums started at a very young age, how the gifting of just a few plants sparked a lifelong love of growing, and how it led to his involvement with the National Chrysanthemum Society. This is a group of plants I have tried growing in the past with limite...

S3E17 of The Gardener Ben Podcast is available for you to listen to and download now. This week, I have the pleasure of being joined by one of my all-time favourite Instagram accounts I’ve been following, @richardgrows, for a very long time now. His passion for plants simply oozes from his account. He has absolutely massive collections of weird and wonderful-looking carnivorous and tropical plants...

Episode 16 of season three of The Gardener Ben Podcast is available for you to listen to now. This week, I’m joined by Ana, co-founder of @seed_ball. With a love of wildflowers and a background firmly set in conservation, Seedball set out to make wildflowers easy to grow and have since diversified into herbs and salads, wrapping seeds in a mixture of clay infused with chilli to protect them from i...

On S3E15 of The Gardener Ben Podcast, I get to speak to Charles Carr, Head of Production at @hilliergardencentres. Home-growing all of their stock, supplying 22 garden centres and their online store with peat-free grown stock 50 weeks of the year, Charles and I explored his journey into the world of horticulture and the challenges faced by the garden centre group going fully peat-free. We discusse...

S3E 14 of the Gardener Ben Podcast is about mindfulness, self, and the quest to be present. It features a conversation with Nicola from @soulfulwisdomacademy. Nicola is a shamanic dragon priestess who I have visited several times for Reiki healing. It’s no coincidence that this particular podcast episode is scheduled, as it marks one year exactly since I visited Nicola for the first time. At the e...

S3E13 this week, I’m rejoined by the amazing Katrina from @buildingafoodforest_scotland. We spoke last year on season two but had so much to catch up on. I thought it would be wonderful to invite them back to the podcast to see how the 2025 growing season ended and see how Clayton and the rest of the family were getting on. Katrina juggles a busy family life while wearing many different hats, incl...

After a short festive break, the Gardener Ben Podcast is back with season three and episode 12. I would like to stress there is absolutely no pressure and no rush to be getting on with tasks in the garden whatsoever at this time of year. The garden is slumbering quietly, and winter is doing its thing, breaking organic matter down and cleansing the garden of harmful fungal spores, pathogens, and di...

S2E11 of the GardenerBen Podcast features @david_long_gardens. As I’ve been doing lots of shuffling about and redesigning here at North Lodge, and after meeting David at the BBC Gardeners’ World Spring Fair, I thought who better to catch up with and talk us through his design process when he takes on a professional garden project. David covers all areas of Dorset, Hampshire, and Wiltshire in his w...

S3E11 of the Gardener Ben podcast features an in-person informal conversation with Philip Harkness from @harknessroses1879. Philip is the fifth generation of his family to be at the helm of the Harkness rose company, and it was a real honour to get to know him properly, away from the hustle and bustle of the floral marquees of show season. During our conversation, Philip shares his thoughts and op...

The Gardener Ben Podcast is all about the topic of peat this week. I had the absolute pleasure of talking to @sally.nex from @peatfreepartnership a few weeks ago about this all-important topic, which has raged on in the horticultural industry for the entirety of my horticultural career. Many of you will be shocked to read that the legal extraction and destruction of peat bogs and habitat is still...

As we rapidly head towards the festive season and many of us are starting to trim and decorate our homes in preparation for Christmas, I’m joined once again on the Gardener Ben podcast by Dr José Costa @childrensallergy for a conversation about allergies and Christmas trees. This is always a difficult time in our household with regards to allergies. The Christmas tree, the moving around of the fur...

The Gardener Ben podcast heads off to the Gold Coast of Australia for this week’s episode, where I’m joined by Chloe, a member of @goldcoastrosesociety. She explains how a trip to a local flower show with her mum sparked a passion for roses, which has taken her down a rabbit hole into the wonderful world of roses. I really hope that you enjoy our conversation, and if you have access to a local ros...

This week on the Gardner Ben podcast, I’m joined by @ethan__mi A plant and soil ecologist who is currently located in Edinburgh but Hales from Close by here in the New Forest A passionate Plants person whose followed his interests through botany and into ecology it was lovely to get to know Ethan more personally, especially as he attended the same horticultural college as myself here on the south...

Peter Beales head gardener @mat.nicholas.9 joined me me for a myth busting bare root rose Q&A, where we address and put to bed some of the frequently asked questions and myths I get asked everyday about bare root roses during planting season #gardenerben #q&a #barerootroses #plantingseason #roses #plantagarden #helpingyougrow #gardener #peterbeales #peterbealesroses #mythbusting