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Watch Sarah Raven as she plants lupins and shares her tips on soil acidity and drainage.More advice on growing flowersCreating a cutting patch video project.Planting out cerinthes.Caring for peonies.Growing dahlias from seed.

Learn how to plant up a traditional hanging basket, with Sarah Raven's advice on choosing a basket and plants, as well as tips on retaining water. springMore advice on hanging basketsRachel de Thame demonstrates how to plant up a traditional hanging basket.Watering hanging baske...

to pets and wildlife than those with metaldehyde. In both cases, a light scattering usually does the trick. Bin the bodies in the morning.seedlings, bedding plants, herbaceous perennials, root crops, strawberriesall year roundMore advice on dealing

Hungry, voracious caterpillars can be found in a wide variety of colours and sizes. Some feed on fruits, roots and stems, but the likes of the cabbage white butterfly, hawk moth and winter moth feed on leaves. Although they may at first seem an attractive form of wildlife, large ...

Protected from predators and the risk of dehydration inside its moist ball of bubbles, the juvenile yellow-green froghopper (or spittle bug) is busy sucking plant sap. It's quite harmless unless it's attacking the shoot tips, which can result in distorted growth. The adult frogho...

Earwigs, which can be up to 14mm long, hide during the day and emerge at night to feed. The females lay eggs in late-winter, usually in the soil, which hatch in spring. Although earwigs can damage plants, they also eat small pests and their eggs, including aphids and codling moth...

Adult and immature leafhoppers suck sap from the leaves of plants and cause mottled discolouration. The 3mm-long adults readily spring from the leaves when disturbed. The pest usually overwinters as eggs laid on the plant. These hatch in spring and go on to produce several genera...

Spores carried by water and wind spread this fungus, which leaves primula foliage peppered with holes. The initial signs are spots in a yellow-orange area, or in grey, papery tissue. When the centre falls out, holes appear. Look beneath the leaves and there may also be white fung...

Whether you’re looking for a bright bedding display, flowers for cutting or reliable border plants, it’s hard to beat the variety offered by dahlias. Dahlias come in many sizes, so there's one for every border, and small forms can also be grown

There are many species of aphid, often with its own favourite host plants and particular life cycle. Greenfly and blackfly are the most familiar, but there are also yellow, red, orange and brown aphids. Aphids usually spend the summer on one plant, moving to a host plant to overw...