Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from GardenSqua.re. In this issue we look at (1) The Good/Bad/Ugly of...
I hope you and your neighbours have been enjoying the fleeting moments of warm weather over the last few weeks.
My apologies for the delay with this newsletter. The clients that have engaged us in 2026 will know that we welcomed a new member, Austin (3.28kgs), to the team in late March. He’s slept through most of his initial training, though I’m confident he’ll impact moling in no time.
in this newsletter we cover:
- How we used AI to produce a 319-plant planting plan
- Our guide to the upcoming London Open Garden Event
- Supporting birds in the garden
- Spring cleaning the Shed (& mitigating rodent-born diseases)
- A reminder about our stretch marquee hire service (from £500)
If you’ve been forwarded this newsletter by a friend/colleague, please feel free to sign-up to receive emails directly going forward by visiting the Newsletter section of our website.
Wishing you a pleasant, sunny and warm summer ahead.
All the best
Tom
It is tempting to think of gardening as one of the last places safe from artificial intelligence: a noble world of soil, secateurs and people quietly disagreeing over Latin names.
Naturally, we have found a way to involve AI.
At Gloucester Square, we used it to help select 319 plants across 79 varieties, matching each to bed conditions, colour schemes, sunlight, regional themes and budget priorities. The result was not a robot gardener, mercifully, but a much faster way to turn nursery stock lists, landscape guidance and on-the-ground horticultural expertise into a practical planting order.
This article explains how we built the process, what worked, what didn’t, and why AI may be unexpectedly useful in helping Garden Squares plant with more variety, structure and confidence.
I will be manning the gate at Gloucester Square on Sunday June 7th as part of the LOG Event, please feel free to stop by as my guest to take a look at the plants picked by AI.
On Saturday, I’ll be using my volunteer ticket to tour Garden Squares, starting in Bedford Square on 10am – the more the merrier so if you fancy a trek do let me know.
Should you be tempted to have a gander what other Squares have been up to, we’ve put together this quick guide focussed on the Squares taking part, interesting features, and how to get half price tickets.
Supporting London's Birds
Few things make a London Square feel more alive than birds going about their business: blackbirds turning over damp soil, robins inspecting the borders, and the occasional parakeet behaving as though it owns the place.
Following some client inquiries we’ve put together this article, looking at practical ways to support garden birds — through food, water and shelter, whilst avoiding counterproductive features that spread disease.
That means choosing feeders with care, providing clean and regularly refreshed water, using planting and irrigation to support insects and soft ground, and placing bird boxes where birds might actually wish to live.
It is a cheerful guide to helping birds thrive in London Squares—with a little planning, a little maintenance, and rather fewer assumptions about what birds consider useful.
Spring Cleaning for Sheds (ref: Hantavirus)
Having spent a fair few years in North America, and read Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods cover-to-cover on more than one occasion, I have become reasonably vigilant about hantavirus and other rodent-related diseases. The recent tragic outbreak associated with the cruise ship MV Hondius is a sobering reminder that these risks, while rare, are not merely the stuff of wilderness memoirs and overactive imaginations.
Granted, hantavirus is materially more common in the Americas than in the UK and Western Europe, but it is not unheard of here. Sheds, stores, basements and other enclosed spaces are precisely the sort of places where rodents can nest undisturbed, and Central London has more than its fair share of four-legged opportunists.
At our home base in Gloucester Square, we have taken practical steps to organise the Garden Shed, reduce places where rodents can hide or nest, and make surfaces easier to clean.
In this article, we look at some of the steps Garden Squares can take to make their sheds cleaner, more functional and safer.
Reminder: Stretch Marquee Hire starting from £500/half-day
We don’t aspire to be an events business – we started offering Stretch Marquees as traditional Marquees (with temporary floors, tables and chairs) can cost over £3k per hire and are very disruptive to Gardens.
Personally, when I host a Garden event, I’m not as interested in the bells and whistles, I just want the security of a large shelter (if/when the weather may require) that doesn’t cost the earth.
Our Stretch Tents are (dis)assembled in under an hour, offer shelter for up to 60 people, and cost as little as £500 (inc VAT).
The hope is they can facilitate more events in your garden, from Neighbourhood Events to boost community spirit, to individual resident-hosted events to raise funds. This is particularly useful for Gardens operating under contracts that make the holding of ratepayer reserves more challenging.
Just don’t ask us to provide tables and chairs (the savings can allow the Garden to buy nice permanent furniture).
Related Posts
In this issue we introduce our new services of Soil Injection and Stretch Marquee Hire. We also give some...