My name is Ali Matthews and thank you for visiting my Love Gardening Shop.
I have always been totally passionate about gardening since being a small child. Both of my grandparents loved gardening and my fondest memories of being at their house, was helping my grandfather pick his vegetables and loganberries and then enjoying watching my grandmother turn them into wonderful tasty meals.
Both of my parents also loved gardening and were brave enough to buy a plot of land and build their own house. The soil was dreadful clay, so it was a backbreaking job turning this into a beautiful garden. After a couple of years, they then bought the wood next door, so we were lucky enough to grow up with not only a grass tennis court, but also a productive orchard and wonderful old deciduous trees in our garden.
Maybe this was where I inherited my bravery in not only buying and renovating houses, but of turning a wild wasteland into a ‘Beatrix Potter; style garden of my own. I have moved many times and always seemed to inherit gardens which were unloved and needed love and attention.
I have just completed a complete house renovation and also have totally restored and completely redesigned an acre of garden which now has fruit trees, vegetable plots, fruit and a cottage garden full of colour and scents as well as bees and butterflies. I have grown a majority of my plants and vegetables from seed and love to watch something grow from a tiny little thing, into something that gives me so much pleasure as well as feeding the wildlife and myself.
It gives me great pleasure to now have a business which is about something so near to my heart as gardening and I hope that through my website and my Love Dogs Shop Facebook page you will share stories and pictures of your gardens and what they mean to you.