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home for their offspring. Every summer a leaf cutter bee spots the hollow canes, and uses them as a nursery to lay its eggs. Each egg is cocooned in a layer of carefully cut leaf discs. I'll spot where these have come from as I garden, where neat discs

Summer may have started late following the June drenching, but it hasn't been a complete washout. One star performer in my garden has been a wonderful new osteospermum. I haven't grown them for a few years, but Osteospermum Sunny Philip caught my

Not everything in my garden is carefully planned, and I make no excuses for having it this way. It's a wise gardener that makes room for the unexpected, and the rewards this can bring. Leave an area of soil bare and something will grow, and while

What an amazing fortnight I've had, cruising right round the British Isles in the company of over 300 gardeners, and visiting great gardens along the way. The Gardeners' World Magazine 20th Anniversary Cruise was a great success, with experts Pippa

producing a single flower per stem once a year, moth orchids produce several stems, each boasting a dozen or more exotic flowers. Yes, I know you'll find these phalaenopsis orchids everywhere now, but they offer so much more value than a bunch of cut flowers

Ask any seed company to name their Top 10 bestselling flowers and you'll regularly find sweet peas in first place.Sweet peas are the gardeners’ favourite for climbing colour and delicious fragrance, bringing a touch of cottage garden nostalgia

Although flowers usually steal the headlines, think how bleak a garden would look without foliage. Leaves are a vital part of every garden. Consider the contrast between the lushness of summer and the bleakness of winter, when tender plants have

With such a dull, damp and dismal start to the year, I didn't feel very motivated to venture into my garden. That all changed last Friday as I watched Carol Klein's new series, Life in a Cottage Garden, documenting her gardening year at Glebe

.While this verbena is often classed as a perennial, most gardeners treat it as an annual. Old plants can be cut down to their base each winter, and new shoots do often develop the following spring. However, for a reliable display (like the one shown in the picture

Flowers are not the only attraction in winter gardens. Biennial honesty (Lunaria annua) is a good example of a plant that keeps delivering after its flowers have passed. Once the petals have fallen, enchanting disc-shaped seed-pods are formed