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feature out of it.Discover our top tips for creating and maintaining a lawn in a small space, below.Don’t be tempted to extend your lawn into every nook and cranny. You’ll get little benefit from slivers of grass squeezed between borders, and small patches

. In terms of value, a single perennial could cost you, say, £5.00 to buy, but you could pick up a packet of Godetia Dwarf Mixed flower seed for just £1.39, and grow 1,000 plants! Yes, 1,000 seeds in a packet, and other hardy annuals offer similar great value

and protecting from strong sun and wind. (Keep late-summer cuttings in a cold frame, to plant out the following spring).Italian artichokes are another 'grow-your-own' plant that looks superb in a mixed border. 'Violetto' has a gorgeous purplish tint, which

use this technique to grow flowering perennials and biennials as well as hardy annuals to brighten up you beds and borders. Sow into weed-free soil that has been dug, forked and raked to create a fine surface structure or 'tilth'. SeedsArea of prepared

-draining compost mixed with a few handfuls of horticultural grit or sand.In late-summer, the thrift produces papery, yellow seedheads - make the most of them by placing the pot where the low afternoon sun can shine through them.More ideas for summer colourCreate a

far more quickly than those left intact. Small quantities can be mixed in with other waste in one of my compost bins, but a load like this can be stacked on its own. In the past I've made a leaf bin using four corner posts and chicken wire, but a roll

and work well as part of a mixed border - I have a lovely white iris called Iris sibirica 'Snow Queen' and a blue one called 'Emperor'.These are fine, but they pale into insignificance compared to the huge, complicated flowers of their bearded cousins. Each

displays and mixed borders, that conifers don't feature more highly on the shopping list. After all, they deliver on so many counts, and provide striking structural building blocks in any garden.Perhaps their reputation for growing too large puts people off

in association with Rothamstead Research, shows that some species have declined by up to 99 per cent. Three species – the orange upperwing, bordered gothic and Brighton wainscot – have become extinct.A number of reasons are suggested for the decline. One

lessoniana (formerly Stipa arundinacea). From autumn through to spring, its foliage takes on spectacular red, orange and yellow tints, making it an essential grass for mixed borders.Amenanthele lessonianaPlants don't get much more architectural than