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it comes to vegetables I am on far less stable ground. It is my wife who holds sway over the kitchen garden and who dictates what, why and when: I just do what I am told. But I have been reading quite a lot recently about forest gardens and it is here

of the hazel) play much the same game, as do many conifers and most grasses (albeit later in the year).I was reminded of all this botany by a peculiar event. We were sitting in my in-laws' kitchen, when suddenly it seemed that a great cloud of smoke blew across

I've been busy redesigning a great chunk of my garden. It's an important area, overlooked by our kitchen and bedroom windows, so it's the first thing I see every morning when I stagger out of bed. In contrast to the rest of the garden, it's always

built himself from plants and hard landscape materials that he has begged and borrowed.I am not a manic vegetable grower (my wife is in charge of our kitchen gardening) but there is a very strong vegetable presence at the show. Tucked away down the end

I'm spluttering with indignation.In the dozen or so years that we've gardened here, I've boasted that we've been almost completely free of mammalian vermin: a rabbit emerged once but our two (very efficient) Tibetan terriers soon resolved

topiary. In the winter they provide structure and add tone; in the summer they seem like benevolent aunts standing stiffly, but attentively, above a gambolling chaos of flower and lawn.You don't need a huge stately garden to use topiary. In my garden I

then you can assume that I've made a ghastly mistake and am trying to hide the outcome. If nothing else, the prunings make good compost.If you want to see what my garden looked like a month ago then tune in to Gardeners' World on BBC2 this Friday (1 August

My garden - like yours - is looking fantastic at the moment. Plants that were just poking from cold ground a couple of months ago are now enormous and luxuriant. Bees buzz, roses overflow and lawns are lush.Rather than just brag, I thought I

. Persicaria officinalis (or orientalis) is about 2m high with sturdy stems that don't need staking and heavenly hanging pink flowers. In America it goes by the name of Kiss Me Over The Garden Gate, which is another big selling point.I'm sure there are lots

2009 is likely to be stuffed with articles, books and programmes about Charles Darwin. It is the year of Darwin’s 200th birthday and also the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species, his best known work. The BBC are marking