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by the National Dahlia Society. If you can get there on Friday then don't miss Jon Wheatley talking about Growing Dahlias. He is a fine and entertaining speaker.

plants (there was a particularly striking group of them in Tom Hoblyn's Chelsea garden in 2009). These have slippery sides into which insects fall and are then digested by the fluid at the base of the pitcher. There are large colonies growing in both

lying dormant at the bottom of ponds, where they slow down their metabolism and breathe through their skin. They can survive if the pond freezes over, but only if it has oxygenating plants growing in it (plants can still photosynthesise and produce

’re dead, but just that their tops will have been knocked back. Hopefully roots in fairly dry compost, and insulated from cold, will survive and start growing next spring when conditions warm-up.My colleague Lucy on Gardeners' World magazine looked very fed

the hours of darkness or when you are at work: never at the weekends.May your bindweed throttle itself.May your neighbour's cat be less generous with its toilette.May all your trees grow straight and true.May all your post-digging back aches disappear after

and is somehow part of the emotional attachment I have with my garden.So, apart from investing in heavy duty locks and lobbying allotment committees to improve security measures, what can we do? Growing prickly hedges such as barberry along our boundaries

, occasionally, I make diversions to see them. I always get a slight frisson looking at a strapping young tree that I once planted as an insubstantial whip.Although alder, willow and ash grow satisfyingly fast, I get more satisfaction from oaks than any other

the multiplied stem formed such an alien-looking ribbon, and yet was growing perfectly healthily and strong. The memory stuck with me, because it was about this time that I first read J.G. Ballard’s dystopian science fiction novel The Crystal World, where

flowers for sustenance, and flowers need bees for pollination. But it's important the flowers you grow provide the food bees need.Most double flowers are of little use, because they're too elaborate. Some are bred without male and female parts, while

the gardener, but is a desert for insects. So in front of the Bar we laid a strip of wildlife turf, which is enriched with dozens of wildflowers and nine different types of grass. We'll grow it long, then cut it, as we do the wildflower meadow, just twice a