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Being a caring fellow, I will ease you gently into a new year of gardening by telling you the story of my pyracantha.Pyracantha - or firethorn - is a much undervalued plant. It's a big spiny shrub, originally from China, and is most usually seen

candidates like beech, grasses, roses or even completely random objects.The digital camera also comes in handy when keeping a garden diary. I have pictures of my garden spanning the depths of winter to highest summer so I can always see which bits work

to inject a note of optimism the second picture, below, is of the same area in May - so all is not lost).Now is the time start the big chop back in readiness for the spring. Over the next few weeks I will be cutting back pretty much everything, pruning roses

last week). It is a good moment to look back on the triumphs and disasters in our gardens and to make notes, so that we do not make the same mistakes again.Allow me to share a few of my best mess-ups of 2010.My first is a mistake I did make last year

looking like dog-eared lace doilies. Hostas seem to be the snack of choice for all molluscs.This problem is pretty much universal - except, it seems, at Hever Castle in Kent, the childhood home of Anne Boleyn. Hever Castle has a magnificent rose garden

I think it is time for another deeply prejudiced personal rant about my least favourite plants. Spring is, if not exactly just around the corner, then definitely packed, dressed and on its way. With the spring comes the return to our gardens

Adam Pasco, the handsome and multi-talented editor of Gardeners' World magazine, wrote a blog the other day about blossom. I thought it might be a mildly entertaining diversion to write about the moment just before blooming, the point at which most

heavy duty gardening, it's sensible to wear a pair of gloves. On the other side is the rather macho attitude that real gardeners shouldn't wear gloves because they need to feel what they're doing. I have sympathy with both viewpoints. When ferreting

of Malvern - which clings to the side of the steep Malvern Hills - the whole show is laid out beneath you. Car parks, show gardens and giant marquees are all dwarfed by the magnificent view that, on a clear day, stretches languidly away towards the Cotswolds

In the words of Benny Hill: "I'll never know how a rose can smell so sweet and pure, And hold its head up high when it's standing in manure!".Old Benny cannot have been much of a gardener (a statement borne out by the fact that he lived all his life