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as not to increase petrol consumption, and the less mud the better I suppose, if you love your car.Seriously though, there are many ways to reduce your carbon footprint, and driving around with a load of flowers on your roof probably wouldn't cut it. Planting trees

the ground. (I love dandelion leaves. There're so crunchy and refreshing after a winter of meagre salads. The trick is to pick them before they flower, after which they can taste bitter.) Then the nettles and wild garlic appear (which together make a

garden without life? There are already too many public spaces filled with hanging baskets 'planted' with fake flowers. I stand at train stations and lament the sight of bees and hoverflies wasting energy working out that their search for food is in vain

as the plants start to flower.The spinach I'm growing in troughs as a salad crop, as you need to grow buckets of it for cooking and I don't have the space. Spinach is also prone to leaf miner fly, which bores holes into the leaves and lays eggs, so picking

, bumblebees prefer to nest in messy gardens (although they will feed anywhere with suitable flowers), so I want to give nest-searching queens the illusion that I don't garden at all. The grass will grow long, the borders will rot into themselves

(apart from a friendly pigeon), and I doubt there will be until I have grown sufficient foliage (and bought the all-important plum tree) for them to hide in. And it’s going to be a butterfly and bumblebee haven – full of single-flowered, nectar rich

in flower all year round. I've never seen a frog there but I know they're about as last year the pond was full of frogspawn and tadpoles. That was, until the pond was drained in spring.I never found out why the pond was drained. It was filled in again

If only our gardens could really look like those at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Plunge pools and outdoor kitchen areas aside, I don't think I have a hope of achieving the 'Chelsea look'. My garden is far too scruffy, most of my plants have been

, while the same species in Cornwall will have adapted to salty air and a longer growing season. What's more, these important genetic differences can determine when the plants come into leaf, flower and fruit, so the same species imported from elsewhere

overnight, leaving my poor orange tree to fend for itself in sub-zero temperatures (it survived, but hasn't flowered in the four years since). A cold frame, some lovely wooden seed trays and a hose pipe were also stolen, no doubt to be sold on for pennies