Handsome and hardworking, evergreens are the backbone of many great gardens. They do a great deal of heavy lifting throughout the year, providing structure and form against which more exuberant and colourful species can shine. Often it’s only in wint

What to do when running repairs run out of steam For the past few months we’ve been carrying out a series of running repairs on one of our raised beds that was slowly rotting away. The inevitable happened last week, when one of the side panels came c

I’ve been a fan of magnolias for pretty much all my adult life. They have arguably the largest flowers and largest individual leaves of any trees and shrubs hardy to the UK. If you want something to fill a corner of the garden with colour, in most sp

I am passionate about building an eco-friendly lifestyle one tiny step at a time with my two kiddiwinks, my husband and our flock of chickens on a plot of land in Herefordshire. I’ve always been aware of the impact us humans have on planet earth and

Is it too much to ask that the shrubs in our gardens give us more than a summertime and autumn show? I don’t think so - we deserve and should demand more. I want the fresh, frothiness of blossom in spring and the kaleidoscopic euphoria of summer, bef

Late winter and early spring were the wettest I can recall, making most of the garden a sodden no-go zone. I kept myself cheerful by sowing hardy seeds in trays and germinating them on the windowsills. But now, at last, the weather has turned in our

The sowing season is well underway and we are now at the stage when it’s safe to start your less hardy vegetables. So this week I have been preoccupied with French and runner beans and tomatoes which are set to go outside on a sunny patio, rather tha

1 Summer bedding plant distantly related to the potato (7) 6 In botany, an inflorescence where the first flower is the terminal bud of the main stem, and subsequent flowers are terminal buds of 11 across stems (as in the African violet, or saintpauli

On deciding to build a Japanese garden at Barnsdale, the approach we took was to create a space that had the feel of Japan without being confined by the ropes of authenticity. This not only helped create the aura I wanted from this space, it also gav

Pennington Community Allotment, near Lymington in Hampshire is a group of sociable people who love gardening, food and cultivation. Everyone from the community, whatever their age, is welcomed. The allotment is peat-free and volunteers campaigned aga

Q We want to create a rockery on a slope in our front garden. Could we use a mix of soil and compost… and what are some all-year, low-maintenance plants we could use? Stephen Parker, Somerset A Well done! After terracing the slope, starting at the bo

The children are back at school (phew!) and the garden returns to tranquillity. How on earth have we arrived in mid-April so quickly? As spring progresses, we are gearing up for a season of plant fairs and are even getting ready for a weekend away in

As you can probably imagine, I don’t have that much time to actually garden! Yet I live on a smallholding with a total of 2.3 acres of land, a third of an acre of which is dedicated to the gardens themselves. Over the 14 years I’ve been here, through