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and their exuberance. By 'big' I mean something that dwarfs its neighbours and reaches at least 2m high. I have five such plants in my garden.The first is Inula magnifica. I can see the cheerful, shaggy yellow flowers from my office and they never cease to amuse me

) and cat wrangling (definitely) have their enthusiasts, but there's something about plants that makes people bubble and froth with excitement. This can be lost on a great deal of the population who can't understand what all the fuss is about. To those of us

A lot of plants are, like stragglers from a hen night, not very good at remaining upright without some support. (Although they are much less likely to wear unnecessarily short skirts or disgrace themselves in shop doorways).I'm very lucky to live

before the more common Magnolia soulangeana. Its flowers are more delicately balanced and the leaves are a bit bigger. 10m high eventually.Scleranthus biflorus ssp. uniflorus is a sort of wildly frothing mossy looking plant. Needs good drainage and works

. Their root systems become inseparable. Very romantic. I engineered a similar occurrence here by planting three birch saplings together and then plaiting them: now, 12 years later, they have grown into one rather singular tree.If I might wander off in a new

is so unexpected and so swift that you're only able to take six plants from your existing garden.So which six plants will you choose? Will you go for something big - a favourite cherry or a noble oak? Maybe an evergreen to liven up your winter? A rose

plants (there was a particularly striking group of them in Tom Hoblyn's Chelsea garden in 2009). These have slippery sides into which insects fall and are then digested by the fluid at the base of the pitcher. There are large colonies growing in both

the window at back gardens whizzing by at 70mph. It's also always interesting to see which plants flourish in the no-man's-land of railway embankments. At this time of year there's a dense covering, largely undisturbed by man (apart from the occasional

the beginning of the tree planting season and I want to state the case for one particular tree. A tree that, if you want your autumns to always be as sparkly as an Maharanee's tiara is indispensable. Ladies and Gentlemen (drum roll, please)...I give you

foolish as to think that spring is here - we are more than likely to get whacked by frost or snow before then - but at least it is showing willing.One of the best things about this time of year is scent. Flowers are pretty rare but there are a few plants