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or espalier, try MM106 or MM116 rootstock. For larger trees, choose MM111. You can get smaller rootstocks such as MM26 and MM27, but these tend to produce a smaller crop of fruit with greater susceptibility to pests and disease.What are your favourite apple

Garden Birdwatch.Birds will only visit gardens where they feel safe. The ideal bird-friendly garden has a mixture of trees and shrubs for birds to shelter in, a lawn from which ground-feeding birds can forage for ants and worms, and a wild, grassy area

Last winter, when I went to great trouble to feed the birds in my garden, my offerings were largely ignored. This winter, I'm trying again, leaving seeds, chopped apples and suet pellets for ground-feeding birds such as robins, blackbirds

pupating and emerging as an adult. They are usually species of fly or moth, but some are types of beetle or sawfly. There are flies that tunnel through spinach and beetroot, moths that fashion phallic-shaped 'cases' from leaves of apples, beetles that leave

of apple trees, a greenhouse (that sadly got stolen), a wonderful bright yellow tub trug, an orange tree, and an incredibly sharp gardening knife. But I've also received some horrors, one of which was so bad I took it back to the shop and exchanged

visiting my plot. I put seed out for them which the pigeons couldn't reach (they had their own), and fashioned a snow-proof feeding station using an umbrella, which sheltered the birds and seed from snow. I left chopped apples in the borders. Everything

gardener – naturally gave me the bit of garden she didn’t want: a north-facing bindweed-ridden patch of earth beneath an apple tree. There I grew courgettes, carrots, lettuce and runner beans. I harvested the carrots too early (how my mum laughed