The Gardener Ben Podcast

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, which is not a subject I know a massive amount about. I hope that you enjoy our conversation and that you show his account on Instagram and TikTok some love. 💚

The Gardener Ben Podcast is brought to you in association with @peterbealesroses, winner of 30 Chelsea Gold Medals and creating timeless roses since 1968. Go online and shop at www.peterbealesroses.com, and make sure that you’re following along on Instagram and TikTok.

The podcast is edited by @mark_hamilton_anderson.

Join me again next week when I get to talk to Neil from @national_chrysanthemum_society. This is a group of plants that I’ve barely explored but absolutely adore, and guided by Neil’s advice, I’ve gone ahead and ordered myself a collection of plants which will be delivered in the coming months.

Catch us next week. Until then, I hope that you stay dry, safe, and happy gardening.

#gardenerben #podcast #gardeningpodcast #listennow #podcaster

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 insect damage and make them easy to grow just about anywhere.

Listen to the full episode on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, or my YouTube channel now, and make sure that you head to their account and show them some love 💚

The Gardener Ben Podcast is brought to you in association with @peterbealesroses, winner of 30 Chelsea Gold Medals and creating timeless roses since 1968. Go online and shop at www.peterbealesroses.com, and make sure that you’re following along on Instagram and TikTok.

The Gardener Ben Podcast is edited by @mark_hamilton_anderson.

Next week, I’m joined by one of my personal gardening accounts on Instagram, @richardgrows, sharing with us his passion for rare, unusual, and different plants.

#gardenerben #podcaster #gardeningpodcast #listennow #growgram

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 discussed how some plants that we have been used to purchasing have really struggled with the changeover, while others, such as ferns, have become much easier to produce and therefore more readily available.

If you haven’t yet registered your vote to lobby the UK government into taking action and banning the use of peat in the horticultural industry — which sees enough peat removed from the environment to fill 300 Olympic-sized swimming pools each and every year — head over to @peatfreepartnership now and make your voice heard.

The Gardener Ben Podcast is brought to you in association with @peterbealesroses, winner of 30 Chelsea Gold Medals and creating timeless roses since 1968. Go online and shop at www.peterbealesroses.com.

The podcast is edited by @mark_hamilton_anderson.

Next week, I have the pleasure of being joined by Anna from @seed_ball. So until then, happy gardening!

#gardenerben #podcast #gardeningpodcast #listennow #podcaster

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 end of 2024 into 2025, I was really struggling with my mental health. I was incredibly depressed, lost, and weighed down, carrying pain, grief, and anxiety that I didn’t know how to let go of. I had lost the ability to hear the voice in my head. I couldn’t decipher which way was up or which way to turn next. Luckily, I had people around me to guide and help me, and although I had started personal therapy, I was determined to do as many things as possible to make myself feel as well as I could.

One of these things was to try Reiki healing. The experience was beyond moving, and even if you’re sceptical, as I was when I first visited Nicola, the experience could not be doubted.

So, at a time of year which is traditionally dark, depressing, and challenging for many of us that struggle with mental health issues, I wanted to bring you this personal conversation with Nicola, who shares with us the gifts that she has and her journey into using those gifts to help others like me.

I really hope that you enjoy the conversation, and if there’s something that you’re struggling with, you reach out and ask for the help that you need.

The Gardener Ben Podcast is brought to you in association with @peterbealesroses, winner of 30 Chelsea Gold Medals and creating timeless roses since 1968. Go online and shop at www.peterbealesroses.com.

The Gardener Ben Podcast is edited by @mark_hamilton_anderson.

Next week, we’re swinging back to the topic of horticulture and gardening, and I’m joined by Charles Carr from @hilliergardencentres. Until then, happy gardening.

#gardenerben #podcast #podcaster #mindfulness #wellbeing

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, including homeschooling Clayton, who has severe autism and has found a real passion for gardening and being outside with his mum. She also manages, unbelievably, to squeeze in a little time for some crochet every now and then, and has also written a few books.

Please do head over to her channels, either on Instagram or on YouTube, and show the account some love, especially if you have a young person in your life who has expressed an interest in gardening.

The Gardener Ben Podcast is brought to you in association with @peterbealesroses, creating timeless roses since 1968 and winner of 30 Chelsea Gold Medals. Go online and shop at www.peterbealesroses.com.

Next week, I’m excited to bring you a conversation with @soulfulwisdomacademy, who I’ve visited for Reiki therapy several times, which I have found really helps with my overall well-being, mindfulness, and mental health issues over the last 15 months.

The Gardener Ben Podcast is edited by @mark_hamilton_anderson.

#gardenerben #podcast #podcaster #listennow #gardeningpodcast