Gardening with the RHS

This week we’re rolling up our sleeves to look at how we can support our garden visitors, while also preparing for the burst of life that spring will bring. The RSPB’s Emma Marsh is back to share how monitoring projects like the Big Garden Bird Watch can make a real difference when it comes to helping our declining species. Gareth Richards pops in with his top tips for growing one of his allotment favourites (and a firm favourite with bumblebees too) the humble raspberry. And Olivia Drake shines a spotlight on the RHS Wildlife Wonders plant for January: the shrubby honeysuckle.

Host: Nick Turrell

Contributors: Emma Marsh, Gareth Richards, Olivia Drake

Links:

Sign up to the Big Garden Bird Watch

RSPB free guide and ID chart

How to grow raspberries

Why you need a shrubby honeysuckle in your garden

Today, we’re joined by the RSPB’s Emma Marsh, who shares how she has made her garden into a haven for birds. We’ll also conclude Nick Turrell’s countdown of the most influential plants that have shaped human culture, and history around the globe. Plus, now is the best time to get outside and prune your freestanding apples and pears. The RHS’s Jim Arbury gives us a masterclass on exactly what you need to do to keep your trees productive and in shape for the year ahead.

Host: Guy Barter

Contributors: Emma Marsh, Nick Turrell, Jim Arbury

Links:

Plants for birds

Apples and pears: winter pruning

The new year has arrived with an Arctic blast, and so it feels like the perfect moment to retreat indoors and let the garden live in our imaginations for a while. Nick Turrell joins us to continue his countdown of the most influential plants that have shaped human history. Guy Barter shares his practical ideas for making the most of your Christmas tree in the garden, and Pru Murray takes us through some of the new partner gardens RHS members can enjoy visiting in 2026.

Host: Gareth Richards

Contributors: Nick Turrell, Guy Barter, Pru Murray

Links:

Nick Turrell's most influential plants part 1, and part 2

Visit rhs.org.uk/partnergardens to search for Partner Gardens to visit local to you and find out their opening times for members. 

If you want to suggest a garden to join the scheme or have any other feedback you can email the team on: [email protected]

As 2025 comes to a close, host Nick Turrell looks back on a year of discovery in this special end-of-year edition of Gardening with the RHS. From the quiet resilience of winter-flowering hellebores with plantsman John Grimshaw, to the gentle industry of hoverflies with RHS entomologist Josie Stuart, and a summer journey into Britain’s rare temperate rainforests with designer Zoe Claymore, this reflective episode revisits three listener favourites that reveal how even the smallest patches of nature can support a much wider living network.

Oh the weather outside is frightful but there’s still plenty of wonder to be found out there. James Armitage, editor of The Plant Review, joins Gareth Richards to reflect on the quiet beauty of the resilient plants that carry us through the winter months, and on the quiet beauty of seeing familiar plants anew.We begin with writer and plantsman Phil Clayton, who tells the extraordinary story of the Wollemi pine, tracing its journey from near-extinction to gardens around the world.

James then sits down with Tom Christian to discuss the remarkable diversity of the ivy family, a group of plants rich in variety and resilience, whose beauty and horticultural value are often underestimated.

Finally, we meet South Korean artist Seong Weon Ahn, whose delicate paintings capture plants not only with botanical precision, but with a deep sense of presence and mood.

Contributors: Phil Clayton, Tom Christian, Seong Weon Ahn

Links:

Subscribe to The Plant Review

Host: Gareth Richards and James Armitage