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, at the edges of ponds and rivers. These include bleeding heart (left), monarda, astilbe, actaea, Solomon's seal, toad lily, Himalayan blue poppy and heuchera.Damp shadeThere are even plants suitable for growing in the darkest corner, such as butcher's broom

This is prime iris season: a few weeks when these hugely flamboyant flowers come into their own. I grow two different sorts of iris in my garden: the Siberian iris and the bearded iris. Siberian irises are smaller flowered, have thinner leaves

being far hardier.Another trick when growing them in the garden is to plant deeply – perhaps 20cm or more down – so that they’ll get through winter without being frozen. You can often do the same with dahlias and gladioli, perhaps with just a mulch over

. The first is relatively straightforward: the mullein moth caterpillar. These are stripy chaps that start quite skinny, but rapidly become as fat as witchity grubs by eating verbascum leaves at a terrifying rate. I grow the gorgeous Verbascum bombyciferum

and runs right through until Sunday 14th.I've played a part in organising every show since developing the concept for this live gardening extravaganza back in 1993, and as it enters its 17th year I can honestly say visitors are in for a real treat this week

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

the offending plants and what to do if you have them growing in your pond (remove and compost them, basically).Great. But what should we plant in our ponds to replace the offenders? My blog on dead frogs highlighted the need for oxygenating plants to maintain