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're not flowering - they prefer rainwater to tap water. Give them a regular boost with ericaceous plant food.Some azaleas are deciduous and lose their leaves in autumn, so make sure you choose an evergreen variety for year-round interest.More acid-loving plant

A birch tree makes an ideal focal point and can be grown in a large container. Its silver-white bark and delicate foliage combine with the handsome, soft shield fern and evergreen heuchera leaves for a wonderful woodland combination

be sheltering slugs and snailsAround the gardenCollect seed from allium and sow straight awayPlant evergreen shrubs and conifer hedgesCarefully dig up gladioli corms FlowersKeep harvesting root veg such as beetroot and carrotsOrder fruit trees and bushes

out there that punch way, way above their weight when it comes to fragrance.As an example Sarcococca hookeriana, a sparky little evergreen shrub with deep maroony leaf stems and tiny white flowers like the tassels on a stripper. Last year I had one

Friday 19th June 2009 was the 189th anniversary of the death of one of the most influential people of the 18th century. While 189 is not a very sexy anniversary, I feel that he was such an extraordinary fellow that he should at least receive a

fragrance must be essential to the survival of these plants, attracting pollinating insects, for instance.One of most fragrant garden plants is the evergreen shrub, choisya, the Mexican orange blossom. Choisya 'Aztec Pearl' is one of my favourites, with a

Reliable, trouble-free plants are what we're all after, and Clematis 'Arabella' certainly fits the bill. I planted mine at the base of another really reliable plant, the evergreen Teucrium fruticans, placing it on the shaded north side so its roots

are 'creative, colourful and convenient'. In other words, they'd like us all to buy and plant more of these valuable evergreen shrubs.I find it surprising that while most of us love seasonal colour in our gardens, and invest a great deal of time and money in pot

mould. Small thin leaves such as birch break down fairly quickly, while large leathery ones such as chestnut benefit from being shredded first. Evergreen leaves and conifer needles take far longer to rot and should not be included in great quantities

A few weeks ago I wrote about trees for small gardens. Among the comments (well, to be honest, 33% of the comments) was a request from Daphne for very, very small trees - "very small being up to three metres".Tricky. Three metres is barely a shrub