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and cane fruitsTake hardwood cuttings from healthy fruit bushesFruit & vegPlant hippeastrum bulbs for spring displays Insulate your greenhouse with bubble polytheneVentilate greenhouses on warm, dry daysGreenhouse20 minutesLearn how to make fat cakes

to cut and bend, so a whole clutch of cone hanging baskets can be made in under an hour.1 50cm x 100cm aluminium sheet per cone1.5m of thin galvanised wireFelt pen and stringMetal cutters and a small bradawl50cm x 100cm piece of bubble wrapIvy and ferns

design I know, but just humour me. If it is 1 cm along each side, it will have a body volume of 1 cubic centimetre (cm³) and a surface area of 6 square centimetres (cm²). A larger bird, 2 cm along each side, now has a volume 8 cm³, that's eight times

degrees of frosty weather in between. I like to think a deep carpet of snow, although clearly at zero degrees or less, is actually insulating plants below from even colder air temperatures above. Hopefully no harm will come to the perennials and bulbs

I am not to have any plants yet in my garden. While a thick layer of snow can insulate plants from extremely low temperatures, its weight can cause branches to break. Then frozen ground prevents roots from taking up water, and plants can die from

, where birds such as sparrows can hunt for caterpillars and garden pests. A clean bird bath provides them with water to drink and clean their feathers (which enables them to insulate themselves against the cold).There’s nothing like that in my garden

Should I feel guilty about heating my greenhouse? While I'm turning the heat down in my home to save energy, keep bills down, and reduce CO2 emissions, here I am considering heating my greenhouse to both protect plants through winter and provide

just wrap their wormeries with insulation, such as bubble polythene, to keep out the cold.I've always added small quantities of newspaper to my worm bins, usually by wrapping peelings in a few pages before adding them to the bin. However, cardboard egg

rectangular or square pond can still be wildlife friendly. Straight edges can easily be disguised with plants, both in and outside of the pond.To attract the widest range of wildlife, create areas of shallow water (around 2-3cm deep), which are essential

the upmarket bit. Anything called rothschildiana must have a good heritage. Apparently it was named after Baron Z.W. Rothschild (a keen ornithologist) who collected flowers from Africa to exhibit at a horticultural show in England in the early 1900's