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and drowned in gin.September is an inspiring time to visit your local public gardens, as plants start putting on their autumn show. See what tickles your fancy then head off to your favourite nursery or garden centre. If you find and buy your plants when they

I recently undertook a spot of tidying in one of my flowerbeds. Generally I avoid clearing up too early in winter, and I don’t remove too much old growth, as retaining it can limit plant damage during late-winter cold snaps.Usually, after spending

Living on a hillside, I’m fortunately not in danger of being flooded, but it doesn’t mean I’m not feeling the effects of the recent heavy rains. It’s difficult to walk around my sloping garden without slipping over, and the grassed areas have turned

I know that gardeners in other areas of the country have been blessed with proper, sustained downpours, but no such luck here. My only experience of rain in recent weeks was during a (very enjoyable) visit to Garden Show Ireland at Hillsborough

and the rescue centre called him a 'lap cat'.So what has all this to do with gardening? Perhaps not a lot until the other weekend. This elderly 'lap cat' has suddenly developed a new lease of life, indulging in late night activities, athletics and now plant

very favourite garden destinations. I love seeing what we would regard as house plants growing with weed-like vigour on the roadside, or trimmed to form a hedge. Poinsettia always looks wonderful there, not to mention the tangled jungles of Opuntia

the greenhouse at this time of year, composting or binning any winter plant casualties. Somehow after Christmas I always feel mentally tougher and better able to throw out plants I should have binned long since.Seed packets that are way past their sell-by date

dashing around watering my newly planted garlic and onion sets, opening cloches and rolling back the vent covers on my new brassica frame.I recently planted overwintering brassicas, so I rigged up some temporary shading for them, using old netting from

to start early because although there is now a tremendous crop on some of the Prunus spinosa that we planted shortly after we moved here (the excuse was that it is of course, a great native hedging plant!).Those by the footpath will be cleared of all fruit

am sad to see the back of summer (what summer?!!). But there is something else I am pleased about, in a perverse, time-saving sort of a way.Snails - not the small ones or the medium sized ones, just the large vegetable and ornamental plant