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, especially during the high-risk hardy annual season.I love sowing seeds and still get a thrill at what can be achieved from just a few packets. Any packet labelled 'hardy annual' (or the abbreviation, 'HA') will do the trick, and there's no need for seed

This year we held our annual Gardeners' Question Time Garden Party at our GQT garden at Sparsholt College near Winchester, Hampshire.  This year it was a serious scorcher with baking sun and sometimes oppressive heat, but it certainly seemed

. If you have light, free-draining soil, you can start planting potatoes outside. I have very heavy clay soil in my garden, which is still a bit too wet for potatoes, so I’m putting it off for a little longer.I’ll sow some hardy annual flower seeds outside

In those wonderful James Herriot stories, there is a woman called Mrs Pumphrey, whose spoilt dog is known as  ‘flop-bot’. With a name like that, there is no need for a description. When a tray of seedlings suffers with the horticultural equivalent, and the whole lot keels over in...

It’s always great fun making Gardeners’ Question Time programmes. Sometimes it comes with an added bonus when we do a feature special, like when I took the opportunity to go and visit the labs at FERA (Food and Environment Research Agency) in York.FERA carries out masses of envir...

the observations I made of the changes in plants' growth the further north we travelled. A classic example was a laburnum we spotted that was only just coming into bloom. It wasn't just laburnums. The hawthorn trees became less easy to recognise; their annual rate

year.They've got so much to offer, and I'm always amazed by what my friends and neighbours can produce in their back gardens. Current shows will be showcasing the last of the daffodils and tulips with other spring-flowering bulbs, annuals, and some

, so the birds can feast in peace, I’m keeping the cats in for the couple of hours before dusk…Don't forget, by the way, that this weekend (26-27 January 2013) you can record sightings of garden birds in the annual RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch.