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If I had a shiny new pound for every person who has said to me, “Remember last year? We were all swanning around in shorts in March” I would be well on my way towards buying myself a very handsome dinner. This March, I look out of my window and there are flurries of snow whipping...

of the brassica family, which is apparent in the flowers. It grows best near water, hence its presence by my ditch.As folklore has it, this plant is sacred to the fairies and is therefore unlucky if brought indoors. I have no idea what terrible revenge the fairies

As spring finally springs and the soil warms up, we should address a very common hosta problem. You may not, I suppose, be aware that there is any sort of problem, but that may be because you are either very lucky, or that you have never grown them.The idea of wide, slightly quil...

My daughter has just wandered into my office to ask "what is all that stuff growing in the lawn?". While not exactly a perfectly worded horticultural query it is a very interesting point. At the moment the grass is spattered with silver

hispanica): a plant that has been muscling its way into our gardens and woodlands. Bluebells are protected and it is illegal to dig them up from the wild although there are various nurseries who grow them for sale. They are best planted around this time

leylandii hedge: every street in every town all over the land has one. Why? Because they're ridiculously fast growing (up to one metre a year) and, being British, we don't enjoy being overlooked by our neighbours — even when the most daring thing we do

the footpath.We have a bit of wilder ground by the orchard, which tends to grow unmolested. As a result it's completely swamped by buttercups at this time of year. Buttercups may seem to be a terribly annoying weed, but they belong to a huge and distinguished

It's blackberry time - not those machines, without which many "suits" would feel emasculated, but fat berries swollen by rain and aching for crumble. The blackberry bramble is a weed, and the perfect example of a plant simply growing in the wrong

. The rule I have set myself is that it cannot be anything that I grow either in my garden or in any of my clients' gardens. These are all plants I have met briefly, but with whom I have yet to become intimately acquainted.Chelonopsis moschata - a fabulous

, no I. reticulata 'Sir Topham Hatt'.Others worth growing include I.  reticulata 'Cantab', I. reticulata 'Violet Beauty', I. reticulata 'J.S.Dijt' and I. reticulata 'Katharine Hodgkin'.They look particularly fabulous in gravel, as the flowers stand out