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to be kept watered to avoid drying out. OK, its flowers don't last long. Like its relative the hippeastrum, flowers last for about three weeks from first colour to fall, but these are weeks of pure enjoyment. Once they fall I'll cut down the old flower spike

to complement the models.As I wander through this remarkable Lilliput my attention is caught by what seem huge wooden orbs in the tiny oaks surrounding the football pitch. Of course, regular cutting keeps the trees small, and the twisted branches tight; even

I'm sitting on a train as I write this, something I do more frequently than I used to, in an effort to cut back on the number of miles I drive each year. One of the best things about taking the train is being able to gaze, semi-comatose, through

I've planted everywhere. I simply let it spring up among other plants, adding another tier of seasonal colour. Stems can be gently plucked from the soil to use as cut flowers, but I leave mine in place to enhance the display. Without tightly packed

It's all go at the moment, there's so much to do. The recent hot weather has had quite an impact on the plot - plants have doubled in size, flowers are abundant, the onions are trying to bolt and I've got a spring in my step.When there's so much

in the way of a lot of large people wearing clumpy boots. The same has happened to an entire bed that should look like this but instead looks like this.This weekend I shall cut everything down and consign it to the compost heap. So what to do? Depressingly

at it too. Like every child (and indeed most adults too) they love the 'planting pretties' side of gardening. They're forever growing flowers for their plots (currently polyanthus and more polyanthus!). But they also seem to thrive on hard graft. Just a few

and kept below their normal height. They're not much good if you're looking for flowers, but for sheer well-cut elegance you can't really go wrong. You know the sort of thing: yew hedges with razor edges, parasols of pleached lime and frost-dusted box

and they're looking a bit scraggy round the edges. Usually I have no objections to a bit of scrag, but if they are cut back, the geraniums will put on some lush new growth and the salvias will flower again later in the summer. The allium seed heads look

next door to a wood. At this time of year, my younger son and I venture forth with loppers and bow saw to coppice some hazel. Coppicing is an ancient form of woodland management where cutting particular trees down leads to regrowth from the stump. Where