25 Years in Dry, Dappled Shade

An entertaining first time opportunity to hear BBC Radio London and The Robert Elms Show’s resident gardening expert, St John Stephen, talking in person about what he has learnt after a quarter of a century as a gardener in London: its challenges, joys and its unique physical and human environment.

A Chelsea Fringe stalwart, St John will cover the geology of the London basin and its particular climate, the nature of the built environment and the almost endless microclimates that these conditions generate. In particular, he will discuss what he calls the default setting for the London garden: warm, dry, dappled shade, including the palette of plants available, the pests and diseases and the weeds and vermin.

In St John’s experience Londoners have hurried lives and on/off relationships with their little patch, but it is this relationship that he finds the most fascinating after 25 years of observation. So he will also take a look at the human side of the communities of gardeners who are involved in the kaleidoscope of human endeavour and natural process that make London’s gardens unique. They are as much ‘little bits of humanity’ as they are ‘little patches of green’ and whether you garden in dry shade or full sun there is nothing quite so pleasurable and restorative as the communion of souls in the company of plants.