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on white petals: enjoy every minute. I’m not sure I could stand the excitement, so will probably stay home and turn the compost heap.Undoubtedly I’ll be told that I’m missing something, so please enlighten me. If there’s a secret to be shared

There's nothing wrong with instant gratification. Who can resist the appeal of primulas at this time of year? Certainly not me.I visited the garden centre a couple of weeks ago to buy seed-sowing compost (much better than multi

, with new shoots spreading outwards from the fringes. The soil they're growing in gets more impoverished as its nutrients become exhausted.So, what can be done? I do spread a good mulch of compost over the soil around them each year, and this is gradually

six packets of seeds from the collection each year, and a couple of years ago achocha caught my eye. This unusual rampant climber, with the Latin name of Cyclanthera pedata, is unlike anything I've ever grown.Sown in 7cm pots of compost in my warm

did find a busy bee completely defoliating a passion flower in my greenhouse a few summer's ago, and creating its leafy cocoons in the compost of the same pot. Nice to know my garden is appreciated by local wildlife as much as my family.

.Aeoniums are wonderfully generous succulents, as they can be propagated so readily from their rosettes by cutting them from a parent plant and pushing into pots of gritty compost to root. Many succulents are hardier than often recognised, though you need some nerve to risk

because I planted the bulbs in large pots using a peat-free compost that has remained too moist. Extra sand or grit should have been added to sharpen up the drainage, then the bulbs would have grown better I'm sure. Some have grown, producing tall flat

't just about not spraying with pesticides and making compost. Being organic is also about creating viable and balanced habitats in which you can grow the plants you want with the help of wildlife (I think I'll come back to this topic in a future blog

for bringing native wildflowers to derelict sites near you. Alys demonstrated how to mix together a little clay and compost with wildflower seed to form 'seed bombs'. Armed with a pocket full of these she then throws them into derelict sites to introduce

There are days nominated to celebrate apples, festivals for tomatoes and chillies, and whole weeks to inform us about bird nesting boxes, trees, allotments and composting ... and this week it's the turn of the conifer.The Association of British