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it looks like. (We've had it where I work - very nasty - have to avoid growing onions and all alliums for years!I know that onion beds need to be kept weeded in summer or the onions become stressed and bolt, producing a flower spike that saps all

. 'Ballerina' - soaring orange T. 'Negrita' - beetroot coloured T. 'Queen of the Night' - dark and truly gorgeous T. 'Anthraceit' - flowers like the backsides of turkeys (but prettier) T. tarda - early and peppery scentedI could go on for ever but it would

I don't really do birds. I'm usually too busy peering down at insects on flowers or running across leaves. Or I'm on hands and knees, bum in the air, turning stones over looking for ground beetles or grubbing at plant roots for weevils

things in the garden still look wonderful - for example the beech columns that are glowing in the winter sunlight, some gorgeous skeletal seedheads (Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster' and Datisca cannabina) and even some flowers left (especially

and it is one of my great pleasures. The dark green leaves go perfectly with the aged brick, in the spring it is covered with frothy white flowers and come the autumn the branches are laden with red berries. When the hard frosts come we then have a wonderful

interested, which is surprising when food is in such short supply. I know the seeds are poisonous to humans, so birds must know this instinctively, and I'm told rabbits stay clear of them as well.Following flowers in early summer, the faded blooms give way

the bees making their cuts with such speed and precision.Despite the depredations of all these insects, the rose goes from strength to strength and gives a drift of hearty flowers each summer.

in the season.There are still some clumps of hairy bittercress, fresh new dandelions already sporting flower buds and a few docks looking obscenely lush and healthy. But their days are numbered. I've been systematically working my way around the plot, starting

- is an apt descriptor here), but I've also seen 'hairy-footed bee' and 'flower bee'.Only the males have the feathery feet - the middle pair - but I've never been able to find out what they use them for. The sexes are easy to tell apart without having

at it too. Like every child (and indeed most adults too) they love the 'planting pretties' side of gardening. They're forever growing flowers for their plots (currently polyanthus and more polyanthus!). But they also seem to thrive on hard graft. Just a few