Petra Hoyer Millar
Petra Hoyer Millar focuses on the point where gardening, horticulture and climate stress meet, using front gardens, public landscapes and industry practice to show how environmental change plays out on the ground. Her work treats heatwaves, drought and wildlife decline as lived issues in streets, shows and nurseries rather than abstract policy debates. She combines environmental reporting with close knowledge of plants, tools and the horticulture trade, which gives her coverage a practical, on-the-ground character.
Gardens under climate pressure
Hoyer Millar reports on how everyday garden choices shape the severity of heatwaves, including coverage of the trend to pave over front gardens and the role of vegetation in keeping streets cooler. She writes on drought as a systemic threat, examining how prolonged dry spells endanger “nature’s pantry” and the resilience of planting schemes and ecosystems. Her work on extreme summers and water management in countries facing flooding and shortages shows how garden design, infrastructure and national habits must change to cope with more volatile weather.
Across these pieces she connects climate science with decisions about soil, planting and surfaces, giving environmental stories direct relevance to gardeners and the wider horticulture sector.
Horticulture industry, brands and shows
Hoyer Millar is editor of The Dirt, a horticulture industry news platform serving both professionals and serious enthusiasts.
From that vantage point she covers major flower shows and trade events, including detailed reporting on the Royal Windsor Flower Show, the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival and the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Her show coverage looks beyond spectacle to questions of format, business models and exhibitor strategy, such as whether a “quiet garden show” model is emerging and what it means when a long-standing exhibitor like Crocus leaves Chelsea on a high.
She profiles leading gardens and installations at these events, highlighting design trends, planting approaches and how exhibitors respond to shifting expectations around sustainability and audience experience.
Her industry reporting extends to brands and products, notably a feature on Elho’s journey toward using 100% recycled materials in its ranges. In that piece she traces the operational and material changes required for a manufacturer to move away from virgin plastics, tying product design to waste reduction and circularity.
She also writes about core tools such as secateurs, challenging assumptions about what professionals and home gardeners should be using and why certain designs are better suited to long-term, intensive work. These articles treat equipment and suppliers as part of a wider system, showing how choices by manufacturers and retailers feed into environmental impact, worker health and the quality of planting and maintenance.
Wildlife, designers and gardening culture
Wildlife conservation runs through Hoyer Millar’s work, including coverage timed to Hedgehog Awareness Week that examines campaigns and initiatives trying to halt the decline of hedgehog populations. In that reporting she focuses on practical measures in gardens and green spaces that help wildlife, such as habitat connectivity, shelter and safe management of boundaries and planting. Her tribute to Nigel Dunnett reflects an interest in designers who treat planting, ecology and public space as a single discipline, and it situates his influence within contemporary approaches to naturalistic, climate-resilient landscapes.
She writes long-form profiles and narratives that foreground the people shaping prominent gardens, such as the demanding dual role behind Waddesdon Manor and nearby Eythrope. These pieces explore the work cultures, responsibilities and creative choices involved in running complex estates, linking individual careers to broader shifts in garden management and expectations of public and private spaces. Hoyer Millar also contributes to specialist gardening magazines and trade titles as part of the garden press, extending her coverage of horticulture, design and practice beyond The Dirt.
Her longstanding gardening blog and formal horticultural training underpin a style that blends environmental concern with technical detail and respect for the craft of gardening.
4 more environment journalists.
Abby Wallace
Abby Wallace covers where energy, climate and politics meet, with a focus on how net zero, power markets and extreme weather affect people and institutions. She is an energy and climate reporter at POLITICO, covering U.K. energy policy, climate targets and the transition from fossil fuels. Her subjects include government and opposition debates over net zero, decarbonization, support schemes, infrastructure, public spending and climate adaptation. She also reports on energy companies, household bills, labor standards, supply chains and corporate accountability. Her work connects technical policy choices to jobs, competitiveness, public services and voter sentiment. She uses polling, expert voices and political analysis to examine public attitudes and government response to extreme weather. Before POLITICO, she worked on the companies desk at the Financial Times and the business news desk at Insider. She has also freelanced on politics, business and climate.
Adam Fulton
Adam Fulton is a digital news producer focused on fast-moving global stories where environment, conflict and politics meet. He works on the Guardian’s Australian operation, using rolling live blogs to cover geopolitical crises, climate-linked disasters and wars with clear structure and context. His Middle East coverage, including the Gaza peace plan, tracks tension between political messaging and on-the-ground realities, tying leaders’ statements to military movements, diplomatic reactions and humanitarian reports. His disaster reporting, such as on Nepal–Tibet floods, links rising tolls and missing people to infrastructure damage, rescue strain and cascading environmental threats. His Ukraine war blogs treat resource scarcity, especially water and energy, as strategic factors and track how infrastructure damage shapes the conflict. A former entertainment and arts reporter and senior editor at major Australian newspapers, he applies careful pacing and narrative arcs to collaborative, time-stamped live coverage.
Alec Luhn
Alec Luhn is an environment reporter whose work follows climate change at its extremes, frontiers and human consequences, often reporting directly from places where warming, instability and displacement intersect. He covers climate, conflict and migration, showing how abstract climate trends turn into risks for communities, infrastructure, health and preparedness. He reports for New Scientist on climate breakdown, extreme events, El Niño, limits of models, melting glaciers, warming seas and adaptation to heat, mixing scientific explanation with lived experience. A defining strand of his work is reporting from remote icy and mountainous regions on Arctic sea ice loss, permafrost, polar bears, pollution and fragile ecosystems. He has a long record on conflict and security, including the Skripal poisoning case. His reporting appears in New Scientist and major international outlets, with work across print, digital, audio and television and recognition from climate and journalism awards.
Amy Lyall
Amy Lyall is a regular contributor to The Connexion, and her work stands out for turning French rules, services and the built environment into clear, usable advice for everyday readers. She covers housing, energy use, resident obligations and the practical steps behind things like getting air-conditioning approved for flats. Her beat also includes national and local schemes, insurance and legal conditions for lending a car, mobile network coverage, mosquito-borne diseases, water filters, fruit harvests and emergency drones with defibrillators. She writes news, practical guides and magazine-style features, using plain language to explain technical topics and official systems. She also writes explainers on French words and phrases and occasional culture pieces on unusual sites such as Maison Picassiette.