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In the latest issue of Gardeners' World magazine, I go head-to-head with James Alexander-Sinclair by suggesting that gardeners are doing more harm than good by too much autumn tidying. I just know that all this anti-gardening talk is going to get me

easily access buildings•    they carry Weil’s disease, which is potentially fatal to humansI paid close attention to my garden and realised I had to act when I spotted Ratty mopping up split niger seed from the bird feeders in broad daylight

Two years, I felt the need to grow a local, native plant in my garden. I gathered rosehips from a field rose at the edge of a nearby canal, soaked them in water and sowed the seed in coarse compost.The pots sat in a corner of my patio, doing nothing

I can keep the slugs out.In the meantime I'll continue to welcome in the hedgehogs, frogs, toads, beetles and birds that all play a vital role in pest control in my garden.

I've had a great gardening year. It's hard to imagine my garden now as it was a year ago - a building site, with a huge pile of sand at one end and 200 paving stones and builders' rubble at the other. Then there was an awful lot of mud as we

the birds, but also make a delicious ketchup.I won’t consider which fruit and vegetables I’ll grow just yet. Perhaps that’s a blog for another week.Which plants would you grow in your dream garden, and why?

an extraordinary topiary garden with massive yews clipped into extraordinary shapes - top hats, arches, crowns, eggs, birds, Bobby Charlton's combover etc, etc. I filmed there once (for Small Town Gardens) and the head gardener gave us two top tips: always spray

returned.I'm no bird expert, but these harbingers of summer lift my heart when, as now, they scream their victorious celebration of return across the heavens. They made one low sweep together, a passing salute, then divided and wheeled off to the horizon. I

the young leaves were added to peoples' sandwiches; it supports at least 149 species of insect and the berries feed more than 23 species of bird; hawthorn is pollinated by dung flies and midges attracted to the mildly unpleasant smell and the fact

apples and, once we have had a few frosts which tend to soften the fruit, they will provide a good food source for birds.There are five varieties in particular to which I would like to draw your attention. Ladies and gentlemen:The first is Malus 'John