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). For now, the important thing to remember is that frogs, toads, hedgehogs and birds can all help the gardener in the battle against slugs and snails, but if you don't have pests to feed these welcome predators they're not going to take up residence

with daffodils in an almost unquenchable variety of shapes and colours, almost all of them shades of yellow. Given the joys of this or this or this or (almost) any one of the 20,000 available varieties, why choose a forsythia for your spring hit of yellow?It also

, snails and froghoppers - and, of course, I watched the plants grow. I'm trying to cover the walls and fence with climbers, and seeing these scramble over new territory has been a delight. I wonder how much they'll grow in 2011.Many of my plants came from

scandens x1 (seeds or one pot-ready plant)Verbena x3 pot-ready plantsLysimachia nummularia 'Aurea Goldilocks' x6 pot-ready plants40cm potPlant support loopJohn Innes No.3 compostMulti-purpose compostPlant up pots in position as they'll be heavy to move

for the frogs, slugs, snails and other frog food. I'll let my borders rot down into themselves.Following Richard's advice I've also ‘created’ a jumbled pile of pots (it looks hideous), I’ve left straggly clematis stems unclipped and there are plenty of patches

to dismantling and removing it, only to find around 15 frogs buried in the compost, asleep. I quickly covered them back up and left them alone again.Frogs residing in grow bags is nothing knew. I spoke to frog expert Jules Howard, who said grow bags make

, which open to pinky-white flowers in spring.Skimmia japonica 'Rubella'I love this hosta, with its flashes of creamy white on dark-green undulating foliage. Planting hostas in pots helps to protect them from slug and snail attack.Hosta 'Night Before

and more sky than I can take in even with both eyes. There is just too much wildlife to look at in detail, so here is a mélange from the first week of our stay.Saturday 7th August 2010 Everything is much greener than England so they've obviously had more