The working year, written down.

Design is only half of it. The estates in our care run to a seasonal programme that keeps them improving long after the drawings are done. What gets tackled, in what order, and what it costs you to get the timing wrong. These guides take that same working year and set it out for a private garden, in plain English, from someone who is still out doing the job.

Available now

The Garden Year

UK Garden Maintenance Planner · A4 PDF

Most gardening advice tells you what to do. Very little tells you when, or what it costs you to get the timing wrong. This is my working year, in the order I actually run it. Gardens compound. Do the right small thing at the right time, month after month, and the results take care of themselves.

The month ahead. What is happening in the garden, and why it matters.
Priority tasks. A tick list, roughly in order of importance.
What to watch for. The pests, diseases and weather that catch people out.
Michael's tip. One thing from professional practice you will not find on a seed packet.
Reflect. One question, because gardens reward people who look.
Plant of the month. Twelve plants worth knowing, one for every month.

£11.99 Instant download · 22 pages · Print at home

Buy on Etsy Secure checkout through Etsy. Files available the moment payment clears, and re-downloadable at any time.

Inside the planner

A garden year, month by month.

One note from each month. The planner carries the full programme behind every one.

Written for UK conditions throughout. Nothing has been converted from an American calendar.

Beyond the twelve months

The pages you will keep coming back to.

Five reference pages that sit behind the calendar and make the rest of it work.

Know Your Frost Dates

The page that makes every other page work. Record your own dates and every timing in the planner shifts to fit your garden rather than an average one.

The Cutback Cheat Sheet

What to prune and when, on a single page. The most asked question in gardening, answered.

The Sunday Hour

Only got an hour this week? Exactly where it goes, season by season.

My Planting Record

What you planted, where it went, what it cost and how it did.

Notes For Next Year

Close the year properly, and start the next one ahead.

Dates bend to your garden

Not the other way round. The frost page shows how to shift everything for a mild coast, a city centre or a frost pocket in the north.

Your download contains three files. The full colour edition, 22 pages, for reading on a tablet or annotating in GoodNotes, Notability or Xodo. The printer friendly edition, formatted to save ink while keeping every checklist crisp on paper. And a Read Me First guide covering downloading, saving and printing. Prints at A4 for the UK and Europe, or US Letter for North America.

The wider collection

Still in the workshop.

Each one written between site visits, so they arrive when they are genuinely ready.

In development

Premium Garden Design Pack

The working method behind a designed garden. Survey to concept to planting plan, with the templates and plant schedules used on live projects.

Coming soon

MJW Garden Guides

Short, deep guides on single subjects. Roses, bulbs and lawns first, each covering selection, planting and the long-term care that decides how they mature.

In writing

The Book

A longer piece on managing a garden across decades rather than seasons, drawn from private estate work in Cambridgeshire.

Beyond the page

Some gardens need more than a guide.

If your property calls for a designed scheme or ongoing estate management, that work is taken on with a small number of clients at any one time.

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