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Last year we made a momentous decision. After many years of buying real Christmas trees to decorate our home over the festive period, we decided to buy a fake one.Previously we had endless scenarios like this:"Are you going to get the tree

easy when I was a child. I always had a list of things without which life would be unbearable. One particular Christmas (around 1966), I remember the choice was between a Johnny Seven or a Secret Sam. Both were complicated weapons systems that fired

?" I hear you cry. Because 'Tis the Season to be mulching - every part of the garden should have at least 2" (50mm) of mulch over everything. This is, I think, the most vital of all garden tasks. In spite of all the chipping and tipping I still cannot

a very pretty white flower. However, all this is about to change as, my friend Cleve West will be forgoing his Christmas dinner, in order that his parsnips are flowering in time to be included in the Chelsea Flower Show garden he is designing

, cleaning them off and spraying some oil around. There are certain tools without which I cannot cope and others which I hardly ever use. Among my favourites are:1. My small border fork and spade, which are perfect for planting and diddling around.2. A steel

.It has, as I'm sure you've noticed, been a bit cold over Christmas — like a proper winter. The ground is too hard and the east wind too ticklish for relaxed gardening, but there is still great pleasure to be had from looking at and photographing gardens

. It is time to bounce into 2010 with a light step and the feeling that valleys can be crossed in a single bound.Many people will have decided that the time has come to start growing their own vegetables. All those excellent Gardeners World projects and blogs

Are you off on holiday? I do hope so. A week or two spent lying around not doing much is an excellent way of restoring a gardener’s energy and enthusiasm. Maybe you would rather charge about being active instead, never happier than when going for a

January already: Christmas neatly tucked away and another year of fabulous gardening stretching away ahead of us. The beginning of the year is the time for fresh starts and change but, rather than pestering you with annoying resolutions which few

would come to his hand - and to ours if we stayed still enough.After that I became a bit blasé on the subject: birds were just things that flew about and, in certain incarnations, tasted good.Today we get quite excited by the birds that visit this garden