My name is Jonathan Gregson and I’m a qualified gardener and garden designer, offering expert garden design, landscaping, and horticultural services in London.
I’m also an enthusiastic plantsman and all-round plantaholic, an addiction which developed over many years working as a curator of the herbarium collections at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Natural History Museum in London and as a Botanist at the Royal Horticultural Society and Chelsea Physic Garden.
Through Backyard Botanics, I have turned a life-long passion for plants into a career in horticulture and botany, transforming neglected or under-used outdoor spaces into affordable and sustainable gardens, which go on to provide their owners with many years of pleasure. Please feel free to email me for more information about the horticultural services I offer, and follow me on Facebook to see photographs of some of the gardens I have created.
Planting plans are just as important to my designs as hard and soft landscaping elements, and I have the knowledge and experience required to choose an interesting and informed selection of plants tailored to the individual conditions and mood of each garden and the aspirations of my client.
I love introducing rare or unusual plants into clients’ gardens, but they are always tried and tested in my own garden first to ensure that they perform well.
I live with my husband Rob in Camberwell, south London, where we grow plants from 250 different plant families in our garden, pushing the boundaries to discover what botanical wonders we can get away with growing in London.
This blog aims to document the development of our mini ‘backyard botanic garden’, the stories behind some of the plants that grow here, the occasional visit to other gardens, as well as general musings on gardening and botany.
Plants have many wonderful qualities: often beautiful, sometimes tasty, always with fascinating stories to tell, they quietly support all life on the planet. Perhaps most excitingly, they can be gathered together from the most exciting and dramatic parts of the world – the Cape of South Africa, the rainforests of Southeast Asia or South America, the Australian bush or the forests of China – and be kept alive in your own home or garden, wherever you live. All you need to get started is a packet of seed.
Join me in pushing the boundaries to discover what botanical wonders we can get away with growing in London.
