A City garden inSpired

For years I've travelled up and down the country, filming gardening programmes in the most beautiful corners of Britain. But all too often, I'd pass through a place without ever really seeing it. I'd arrive, film, and leave - my experience shaped entirely by the production schedule. This year, I've promised myself that wherever I'm filming, I'll try to put an extra day at either end, just to breathe in the place and take the time to see what's growing.

- with DIARMUID GAVIN

Last week, I had the joy of doing that in Oxford. The day before filming a makeover show, I visited the city's Botanic Garden, and spent a few utterly blissful hours meandering along its grid-like paths under a balmy summer sky. I explored the plant beds, which are arranged by plant family - a living encyclopedia of botanical knowledge, stretching back centuries but still evolving with modern science.

There's a quiet magic to this garden. Right in the middle of the City of Dreaming Spires, so steeped in history, you find this ordered oasis of green. A place where time seems to slow and the chatter of tourists fades.

I was especially struck by the lamiales bed, where familiar friends like rosemary, sage, thyme, and salvias grow alongside more unexpected members like ligus-trum and plantago.

The plants here all belong to the lamiales order, which includes many of our culinary herbs and aromatic shrubs.