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. 'Ballerina' - soaring orange T. 'Negrita' - beetroot coloured T. 'Queen of the Night' - dark and truly gorgeous T. 'Anthraceit' - flowers like the backsides of turkeys (but prettier) T. tarda - early and peppery scentedI could go on for ever but it would

and it is one of my great pleasures. The dark green leaves go perfectly with the aged brick, in the spring it is covered with frothy white flowers and come the autumn the branches are laden with red berries. When the hard frosts come we then have a wonderful

to pruning. Some of you might remember the Fortnum and Mason garden designed by Robert Myers at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2007. The building at the back of the garden was covered with trained liquidambars and very effective it was.There are many reasons you

on such small bits of card!Another is a series of fifty garden flowers ranging from delphiniums and water lilies to annuals like bright red salvias and candytuft. Each card has a bit of information and some hints about cultivation written by Richard Sudell - who

, entwined together: a hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) and a blackthorn (Prunus spinosa). This is a rather wonderful accident of nature, as the 'tree' flowers twice. The blackthorn begins in about March and the hawthorn takes over in May. In the autumn

grotesque.A smallish tree reaching only about 20m tall, the field maple has a bark as fissured as the face of W.H. Auden, with a slightly corky texture. The flowers are nothing much to write home about, being little greeny numbers that turn up at the same

: it is about 3m high and has gloriously scented tubular white flowers in Autumn, lush Autumn colour and bright red berries. Or Gentiana farreri, a trailing evergreen delight with flowers like sky blue fanfares? These are just two of the plants that Reginald

major disaster has come to light. Due to a mix up in the bulb warehouse, a batch of tulips that should have been pure white Tulipa 'Purissima' turned out to be unidentified huge-flowered red things, which do not agree at all with the neighbouring pink

woad body paint terrorising Romans. The plant from which this comes is Isatis tinctoria and, oddly, it is not even faintly blue, but very yellow.I was reminded of this by a quick preview visit to Jekka McVicar's stand at this year's Chelsea Flower Show

vegetables also make good additions to the border - asparagus has gorgeous ferny foliage and artichoke flowers are bee magnets(Jerusalem artichokes are, however, excluded due to the possibility of indelicate post-prandial thunderings).Less obvious