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Sown now in the greenhouse, dahlia seeds will produce young plants ready to plant outdoors in late May to flower this year. Seed companies sell a range of quick-growing bedding strains that are suitable for growing this way. You can also use

produced flower buds and the purple-sprouting broccoli which was cropping fabulously only a couple of weeks ago has gone to flower.It seems only a couple of weeks ago that I was harvesting tight clusters of purple-sprouting for the steamer but almost

. During the mock up I realised the high temperatures had changed the colour spectrum of the display. Both the chives and sages had burst into full flower, so we had to lose the wode, as its yellow flowers looked strange against the sudden mass of purple

It's now May, and we're just 12 days away from building our display at the Chelsea Flower Show. We've had a few bouts of sunshine in the last week, during which I could literally feel the plants growing.The new Nasturtium, Tropaeolum majus 'Black

ovoid leaves with inquisitive tendrils that stick to the brickwork like flies' feet. Very late in the season it produces propeller-like buds from which emerge gorgeous flowers that change from limey green to deep purple-blue as they age

gardener needs, but as soon as those big, bold blooms open it's bound to rain and shatter the petals. In the blink of an eye it's all over and I've got to wait another year for them to flower again.My problem is that I love plants, and have to admit

and turn a blind eye to other areas of the plot that need attention. My purple sprouting broccoli, for example, is now in full flower. I won't be using that bed until I'm ready to plant sweetcorn, so I may as well leave the blooming broccoli to provide

and dissolve 1.3kg sugar in it• Take off the heat and add the flower heads• Slice 2-3 lemons into a bowl (at this point you can add citric acid to prolong shelf life)• Pour the liquid over the lemons, cover and leave for 24hrs• Strain into a bottle• Add ice

-spring, covered in white flowers which, come the autumn, turn into deep red berries, or haws. They also make spectacular trees that reach about 5m in 10 years - although if left alone they can reach 18m. They're fantastically gnarly and twisted and every wild

, but it's their striking flowers most people are after. Their blooms are really spathes; bright trumpets at the tip of a stem, with a graceful twist and pointed tip unlike the flowers of anything else you're likely to grow.It's surprising that some