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-forgiving whiteness has gone and left behind it … well, a lot of soggy, mucky chaos. Hedges are staggering slightly after supporting all that weight and my flower borders look about as attractive as roadside ditches. I tend to leave my herbaceous plants standing

I have just ordered a whopping great pile of manure. A couple of weeks ago we finished cutting everything back and hunting down any perennial weeds that were hiding beneath the plants in readiness for mulching: had it not snowed we would have

in the packet. A balanced approach is probably best. Order seeds of those favourites that you know perform well and you won't be disappointed. I'll always try one or two new tomato varieties, but will always grow 'Gardeners' Delight'. Few, if any, can beat

Evergreen trees and shrubs are tricky. They are a very important part of our gardens at this time of year, but they need to be used with great care and a light touch.I'm thinking about this at the moment because I'm planting a new woodland for a

in the middle of nowhere.Having gone through the excitements of excavation, we then just have to do some planting and wait until the pond fills up. I have ordered plants and hopefully we will get them planted this week. In a year or so it will look as settled

, construction and planting. The planting is the most important and carries a possible 30 marks out of 100. In order for a garden to be awarded a Gold Medal it must earn 75 points or more.The next day the judges go round the gardens armed with the assessors

Dr Hessayon recommends spraying turf with worm killer, which seems a bit strict for a domestic lawn. Mostly, however, we encourage worms to colonise our borders in order to aerate and feed the soil; all that mulch which we heap upon our gardens

shafted spade that I've had for many years and a very heavy metal spike that are perfect for digging up large plants or making holes in the rockier parts of the garden.3. My trowels - partly because they were all given to me by people, so have good

in alphabetical order were defended by some and attacked by others. They help customers  (and staff) locate plants if they know what they're looking for, but you could hardly call these benches inspirational. To new gardeners they can even appear intimidating

at Chelsea, designing for Cancer Research UK. When we saw it there was a vast canopy covering a lot of the garden: so large that it had become known among the other gardeners as "the petrol station". However, this was before the plants arrived - I'm certain