The Nature Garden: gardening, wildlife and nature notes · The Weekending Show

Uplands

·47 min·3 clips

Tom Cadwallader hears a committee of terns, a pandemonium of puffins, and an exultation of skylarks.

The Nature Garden Podcast opens with Carl Steinson and the week-ending Lionheart Radio team. They send listeners off on a canny wander down garden paths and country lanes, where birds, bees, flowers, and trees all get their turn without any hurry. Tom Pattinson quickly brings the talk round to safety. After a spell of hot, dry weather, he runs through the small mistakes that creep in when gardening gets rushed: dust in the eye, electric tools, heavy pots, back strain, and the need to take care with long bending and lifting. Tom Cadwallader is out in the uplands of Northumberland. He brings bird collective nouns, local weather, and a mysterious sound that the programme leaves hanging for later. Steve Lowe adds a medieval diversion. His colourful re-enactment at Cresswell Peel Tower gives the episode a local, historical edge before the show drifts back to the garden. The practical notes keep coming. Tom Pattinson says to get ties in before the wind flattens plants, add canes or pea sticks where needed, and sow herbaceous perennials in drills outdoors while June and July still suit the job. Wallflower seed gets a mention too. Strawberries should be netted, or the birds will take their share. The programme also pays close attention to risky corners of the garden. It warns about garden ponds, barbecue heat, burnt fingers, and the danger of leaving flames or water unattended. The poison-garden section widens the list again. Lupin, laburnum, sweet pea, broom, lily of the valley, monkshood, delphinium, foxglove, honeysuckle berries, rue, and euphorbia all get named as plants to handle with care. The tone stays companionable throughout. The hosts move from advice to observation to memory in a way that feels more like a walk with neighbours than a lecture. The close is simple. Carl, Tom Pattinson, Tom Cadwallader, and Steve Lowe send listeners off with a reminder to keep enjoying gardening and time outdoors with nature.

As heard by us

A chatty garden wander that mixes safety advice, birding, medieval colour, and practical summer jobs.

The piece moves neatly from Tom Pattinson's plainspoken safety advice to Tom Cadwallader's Northumberland birding, with Steve Lowe's medieval re-enactment at Cresswell Peel Tower adding a bit of local colour.

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Why you'd press play

Need a Northumberland garden ramble with safety notes and bird names?

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