Search - Articles

the distractions of computers and mobile phones, it seems that 11-year-old young ladies still imagine themselves frolicking in a flower garden with a trug across their arm.We've already got a bed of blood-red dahlias, which provide a lot of flowers for the house

Hampton Court Palace Flower Show is always a good place to look for new 'grow your own' ideas.  The Growing Tastes Marquee this year was better than ever: my highlights for 2010 were garlic and blueberries.I could smell The Garlic Farm's beautiful

.  Although we associate the 12 zodiac signs with particular months, each calendar month is also broken down into astrological signs. Each sign has a type of crop associated with it:Aries: fruitTaurus: rootGemini: flowerCancer: leafLeo: fruitVirgo: root

.  Whether it's a lily beetle, a courgette flower or a row of lettuces, his pictures have made me start to look at things more closely. If Paul can take beautiful pictures of my garden, what's stopping me?We own a very good, but rather bulky digital camera. I

Claudia' and 'The Sutton' are ideally suited, the latter being a more compact variety. I'm going for a bit of colour that will contrast with the wallflowers, so I've chosen 'Crimson Flowered' broad beans. I'm also going to try Red Epicure, which have

which is often used by commercial growers.My sister in law never nets her tree and still has plenty of fruit after the birds have had a peck. Morellos flower later than sweet cherries, which is an advantage in parts of the country susceptible to late

want for jam.'Oregon Thornless' is another popular variety, but the flavour, again, does not, in my opinion, match that of wild blackberries. For good looks, 'Loch Maree' is another useful thornless variety with beautiful pink, double flowers, but

lucky the Central Committee for Agriculture may plant some of my annual flowers for the cutting bed I had planned, but for all I know they could be planning to dig the whole lot up and plant nothing but potatoes!

."Unlike apples, plum trees are mostly self-fertile, but if you live in the North of England or are in an area prone to late frosts, then you may wish to plant the later flowering varieties."'Marjorie's Seedling' and 'Czar' are particularly good for frost