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year.They've got so much to offer, and I'm always amazed by what my friends and neighbours can produce in their back gardens. Current shows will be showcasing the last of the daffodils and tulips with other spring-flowering bulbs, annuals, and some

those instead.Marchspring30 minutesCarex comans, bronze-leaves x1Purple aubretia, 7cm pot x2Narcissus 'Minnow', 9cm pot x230cm terracotta pot x1Peat-free multi-purpose compostPlace pieces of terracotta over holes in the pot's base to allow water to drain

friend who has a plot in the heart of the city centre.Like lots of allotmenteers, she lives in a flat with no garden, so her plot is always a riot of colour, with spring plantings of tulips, daffodils and wallflowers, followed by cottage garden

I'm not overly fond of grey squirrels. Compared to the reds, which the greys have replaced, they are great lumbering brutes. But I suppose I'm lucky that they do little damage in my garden other than digging up a few tulip bulbs, so I can appreciate

you can use iris bulbs; if you wait until spring, simply buy pots of iris. October - November or January - FebruaryFebruary30 minutesIris 'Pauline' bulbs x12 or iris plants x3Hart's tongue fern, e.g. Asplenium scolopendrium 'Angustifolia' x3Bird's foot

Scott's tree planting habits).- The Merry Hall Trilogy. I adore these books: beautifully written, light and fluffy sagas about a new garden taken on in the 1950s by novelist Beverley Nichols. He writes very amusingly about people, places, plants and cats

:Tulipa 'Ballerina': so many tulips, almost all of them gorgeous, but as I have to choose, I'll plump for this one. Water-ice-orange, a waist like Grace Kelly and the faintest scent of velvet glove.Bupleurum longifolia: the leaves have a slight blue tinge

they hunted in packs, like wolves. Of course, each is hunting alone, but they often appear in numbers at this time of year, scurrying across bare ground in the spring sunshine.The ones running around my tulips are Pardosa, and although I can't decide exactly

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

stop to our normal November gardening routine. I would usually be spending jolly weekends doing a bit of light tidying, collecting the last of the autumn leaves and planting the last of the tulip bulbs. Instead we have been shoveling snow out