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.I find myself buying cyclamen for all areas of the house, including the windowsills and bedrooms. If you shop around you can pick them up from as little as £1.99. And to add to the impact of the foliage and the flowers, many vareities now have a delicate

there are mixtures, as I'm often told these sell best. They're not for me. Their ‘kaleidoscope’ effect is a little brash and lacking in – how can I put this? -  style. I want to choose the colours and theme my pots to create more impact. Planting several pots

things to chance, or pick up the pressure sprayer. Today I fall into the former category, but a devastating disease year may persuade me that preventive action would be better in future. And this means using a suitable rose fungicide regularly from early

is the Latin and they have the most divine scent. The secret is to grow the long-stemmed Spencer varieties and to keep on picking them: pretty much every day. If you stop and let them start seeding then they will flower much less vigorously.But, I don't want

, while others have flooded. No wonder the plants are confused.In September, the RHS reported that the unseasonably warm weather was causing plants to flower later than usual, sometimes causing them to bloom again. This was down to climate change

. 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

There are some plants which everyone agrees smell bad. The titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum) and the dragon arum (Dracunculus vulgaris), for example, both smell like rotting corpses when in flower, to attract pollinating flies. Happily, not all

.That’s the thing about gardening: it's important to always remain one step ahead. If you don’t sow it or plant it then you can’t pick it or enjoy its blooms.I’m always keen to find bulbs that deliver real value for money. Some varieties have a really short

of the few flowers I actually cut and bring indoors. A tall rosebud vase is perfect for a small bunch, and I position it somewhere I regularly pass during the day so I can pick it up, breathe deeply, and lose myself in its sweet scent.There has only been one

trees are grafted onto rootstocks, and these determine how big they grow. You need to pick the right rootstock for the space where you’ll be planting.In the past I’ve had problems with poor pollination. Most apples need cross-pollination by another apple