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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

blues, and speckled woods.The hoverflies have appeared in earnest, and bumbles, wasps and solitary bees are everywhere. There is an audible hum, usually only heard in June. They are all squabbling over the raspberry flowers. Pond-skaters are frolicking

Queen Mother. Olga, the new head gardener, is just coming to terms with such an exposed garden, designed in part to provide cut flowers and produce for the house. Tall walls and dividing hedges are essential to create shelter, and new planting projects

potager – a walk-through area with beds planted prettily with vegetables instead of flowers.But if you have a conventional veg patch or allotment, with crops grown at traditional wide spacings, try intercropping. The idea of this is to sow or plant quick

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

sheltered area, then there are a couple of exotic trees that are truly spectacular. The silk tree (Albizia julibrissin f. rosea) has large pinnate leaves and flowers like pink starbursts.Also, Weinmannia trichosperma, which is a Chilean evergreen with fern

again, hoping 'Emir' lives up to its catalogue description (though to be on the safe side I'm keeping two melon plants a little snugger in my greenhouse). So far, so good, and flowers are developing well. Now all I need is to cross-pollinate them

is so extremely laid back and relaxed.In this garden there isn't much really urgent work that needs to be done. Many plants have done their bit and are just hanging around waiting for the winter; those that are still flowering do so with an admirable air

to be done. Spring is a bit like a rollercoaster: you get very slowly winched up through the long days of winter until you teeter on the top. Then suddenly it is downhill rush as everything starts sprouting and growing and flowering and, unless you

blackberries into large colanders.I say all this wistfully, because I still haven't found a good jam-making blackberry that I want to plant on the plot. An allotment friend has kindly given me a rooted cutting of 'Black Butte', but I note from the details