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Despite summer drought in my part of the East Midlands, my apple crop has been pretty good on most trees, but there’s just one problem. A much larger proportion of fruit than ever before has been pecked on the tree itself, resulting in small holes that soon lead to rotting.Now, I...

Should I feel guilty about heating my greenhouse? While I'm turning the heat down in my home to save energy, keep bills down, and reduce CO2 emissions, here I am considering heating my greenhouse to both protect plants through winter and provide

the long wispy side shoots back to about 20cm during summer (July is perfect), and then cutting these stems back further to about 5cm during winter. Pruning twice a year in this way not only controls the mass of new growth that develops each year, but also

to pesticides where possible, so I don't use slug pellets. This season I've discovered the versatility of copper in my battle with Britain's No.1 garden pest. It's been found that copper rings and tape provide an effective barrier across which slugs and snails

different. Having seen drifts of oleander flowering relentlessly on visits to the Mediterranean in the past, I was tempted by a really large specimen I discovered in a garden centre last spring. Costing about £12, this made the perfect subject for a large

in pots, including 'Frances Williams', and they're rarely attacked. A band of copper tape can be stuck right round the side of the pot to provide extra protection if you like, as slugs and snails hate passing over the tape and will turn away

of the Disappearing Fruit'?My gardening resolution for 2012 is to actually eat one of my own peaches, so I need to think of a way to build some sort of netting screen around my small peach tree. This is easier said than done, as previous efforts trying to protect

brown patches develop in the past during very dry periods, but nothing like this. Yes, I know this is really the grass protecting itself, and that it will grow back, but for now it looks dreadful.The lawn is really the least of my problems. Many well

, brought into the warm and protected environment of my greenhouse to ripen in time for Wimbledon. When I came to harvest them, bowl in hand, the fruits were gone.Now it's the blackberries, which are just starting to ripen and will hopefully provide rich

displays, and fruit to enjoy later this year. It's essential to prune wisteria twice a year. Once in the summer, shortening long, wispy new shoots to about 20cm (8in), and again in winter, pruning the same shoots further to roughly 5-7.5cm (2-3in