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't just about not spraying with pesticides and making compost. Being organic is also about creating viable and balanced habitats in which you can grow the plants you want with the help of wildlife (I think I'll come back to this topic in a future blog

nothing else will grow. I love the way plane bark peels, so can’t resist picking off a few scabby bits to see if anything is sheltering underneath. Sure enough, under the very first bit is a small, but prettily marked red and brown bug.A year ago I thought

basketball team.The good, tall growing evergreens like laurels (I think Prunus lusitanicus is probably the finest), photinias or even the gorgeous Arbutus unedo will not look right either. You see my problem? So, my conclusion is that the only reliably hardy

'. This is a half-hardy annual from central Australia, and is heat and drought tolerant, as you'd expect of plants from this part of the world. 'Joey' grows to about 30-35cm tall and produces glorious feathery, silvery-pink plumes. I've never grown anything

.Legend has it that the best grape vines should be planted on top of the buried corpse of a horse (or a sheep if you are short of horses). Fruit trees grow well if a dead chicken is included in the hole. Hamsters, guinea pigs and budgies will also work well

with anyone growing plants for their roots or tubers. Most species, though, are dead wood feeders, and they include lots of very rare species, which only occur in old woodlands, ancient hedgerows and other important wildlife habitats. Their larvae feed

remember sitting with a group of friends in a student bedroom watching Geoffrey on television. So, 'growing your own' is the latest gardening trend, is it? Well Geoffrey was certainly inspiring the nation with Mr Smith's Vegetable Plot in the 1970's

I'm sure it hasn't escaped your notice but, just in case it has, I feel it my bounden duty to point out that there are all sorts of things quietly growing out there. The months of inactivity are drawing to a welcome close; it's time for a general

.It is a big shrub that grows quickly with the result that it is often clipped hard in order that it should not take over the world. Sometimes this results in tightly branched specimens in unusual contorted shapes that look as uncomfortable as vicars in a

Hidden from view by its terracotta overcoat for the past few months, it's impossible to know exactly how the rhubarb beneath is developing without peeping. Rhubarb forcing  jars are wonderful objects in their own right, and mine takes up residence covering an established clump fr...