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I love mulching, and my soil loves it too. Not that I'd admit this in public, but I think it's partly the lazy gardener in me that chooses mulching over digging - it's a far easier way to incorporate bulky organic material into soil.Yes, there's a

manures, sown onto beds and borders and forming a green carpet that can be dug directly into the soil, improving its organic content. Where areas aren't required for crops or bedding for a couple of months I put the area to good use by sowing green manures

family home in Surrey had a massive, spreading clump of them outside the front door, where they flowered through late-summer and into autumn. They flourished despite the challenges of the site, with its very heavy but dry clay soil along the wall

to be scattered onto the surrounding soil when the pods eventually ripen and split.There isn't much bare soil around my hellebores, but somehow a rash of seedlings always develops. I can then delve in with a trowel and transplant them to fill gaps around

I've planted everywhere. I simply let it spring up among other plants, adding another tier of seasonal colour. Stems can be gently plucked from the soil to use as cut flowers, but I leave mine in place to enhance the display. Without tightly packed

-seeded readily. Once they've flowered, the seed heads ripen and split, scattering their contents onto the soil below. I've rested pots of compost around them to catch the seed in the past, or it can just be collected by hand.Freshly sown foxglove seeds germinate

the country and it will really make a difference. And my reward, apart from doing my bit, is lovely compost to dig in and improve my soil.

well with dry shade, but if its leaves do flag I give the surrounding soil a good drenching. A hundred snowdrops bought 'in the green' last month have also been planted through this border, and I'm keeping these watered until they completely die down. I

to loving peonies. They have always been part of my gardening life. Our family garden in Guildford was on a slope near the Downs, on very thin free-draining soil over chalk. Peonies loved it; they didn't demand a thing from us and flourished in return

thing is just how you can ignore them and they'll still flourish. Despite my heavy clay soil I've just left them in the ground, and they've grown up again every summer. If I was more conscientious I would have spread a mulch of compost over the area