In the current economic climate it is sometimes hard to maintain a beautiful garden if you are working to a budget. If you don’t have the equipment, plants or fertilisers for the job, there are, as any experienced gardener will know, just a few tricks of the trade which will help keep your budget down. […]

I’ve started liking fennel. Really liking fennel. It’s not that I ever actively disliked it, but I was fairly indifferent. I certainly never craved it, never pounced upon each occasional bulb that lucked up in the vegetable box, never searched it out, and never grew it myself. But once you’ve slow baked baby fennel in […]

Now May has arrived, let’s hope that the weather has settled down, even though there is a mix of displays in the garden and time for some late daffodils! Early May is a good time to plant up hanging baskets. Always buy your plants from a reputable supplier, with a wide choice of varieties, that […]

In the mid-20th century the pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson warned of a ‘silent spring’. Today it’s only our elder gardeners who can remember ‘spring’ at all. 

No one ever could have predicted that March would end up as it did – certainly not me! All of last month’s optimism, about it ‘coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb’, totally demolished by a avalanche of snow and sub zero temperatures. The beginning of April looks like it will […]