I’ve always owned houseplants – but not, it must be said, always the same houseplants. Of the handful of plants I tend to acquire every year, only one or two survive to see in the next. It’s not that I knowingly neglect them: I try to be attentive to their needs, water them regularly, assess … Read more
While waiting for a show during London fashion week in February, I and a few fashion writers, stylists and editors were admiring each other’s outfits. Surprise, surprise, we discovered that the pieces we loved most were preowned (and largely from charity shops, I might add). The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission … Read more
It is not by design that I have come to meet the Devon-based ecological gardener Poppy Okotcha on the spring equinox, when day and night are equally balanced. It feels fitting. In her new book, A Wilder Way: How Gardens Grow Us, Okotcha describes how it is now that she rids her garden of last … Read more
Secateurs are the single most valued tool in the gardener’s trug, an implement as personally prized as the bricklayer’s trowel. With time, their weight and shape wear familiarly into the hand, becoming a companionable tool for all garden tasks, from pruning woody shrubs and cutting back perennials to slicing twine and preparing cut flowers. The … Read more
Six years ago, the Royal Horticultural Society drew attention to the escalating challenges faced by independent plant nurseries. Citing pressures such as an ageing customer base, fewer skilled workers and the arrival of new pests and diseases, the gardening charity warned that nurseries – the “lifeblood of gardening in the UK” – were becoming increasingly … Read more
Re Chris Smith’s article (I don’t want to die with a freezer full of seeds. Biodiversity and preservation need rethinking, 2 April), the Heritage Seed Library (HSL) based at Ryton Organic Gardens in Warwickshire has been encouraging its members to conserve seeds in their own gardens since the 1970s. The HSL, set up by Lawrence D Hills, … Read more
The airplane’s cabin doors closed hours ago, you’re fastened into your seat and you’re still on the ground, going nowhere fast. What gives? Tarmac delays may be routine, but that doesn’t make them any less of a nightmare. And these instances of passenger purgatory only seem to be getting more frequent for airlines flying in … Read more
The only people I know who speak glowingly about house shares are the ones no longer living in them. When I hear someone describe their house-sharing era as the “best time of my life”, I know they have had at least two years to forget their trauma. That is not a luxury afforded to me – … Read more
President Trump has vowed that he wouldn’t cut Social Security benefits, but his administration’s actions, led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, have upended the agency, leaving many beneficiaries concerned that the popular program and their payments may be imperiled. Several players from the private equity world are now embedded inside the Social Security … Read more
Trump administration officials made the rounds this weekend to try to answer the nearly unanswerable: Why tank the stock market by starting a trade war? And are you subtracting trillions of dollars in unrealized losses out of people’s savings on purpose? Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” was particularly odd. “Most … Read more