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, but it is still fun to watch. The garden will be open for the National Gardens Scheme next June (I will try to remind you nearer the time).As the ground is so wet, we have the luxury of not having to worry too much about water supply as it just gushes out

.Laois. It is the next step in shows like Chaumont in France or the (late lamented) Westonbirt show in Gloucestershire (I had a garden there in 2004).Many people are justifiably wary of the word conceptual in relation to anything, especially gardens as it is often

for garden use in the 1970s. Liquid nicotine is extremely dangerous to all living creatures and was used widely as an insecticide for many, many years. It was either mixed with water as a spray or else vaporised in lamps - in which case the gardener lit

One of the best looking plants in my garden this week is the Pokeweed or Phytolacca americana. It is always interesting when plants that are noxious weeds in some parts of the world are regarded as something interesting and unusual in others

. Cats regard gardener with a supercilious look as if they were Duchesses and you, the de facto owner of the garden, just the lowliest drip on the nose of a tramp.So how to deal with it? Everybody seems to have a theory. Some say filled bottles of water

) was of a Chinese juniper 1.5m tall and 3.5m wide growing in a small, overcrowded garden. Over a period of years it was dug up, pruned and replanted until it fitted into a pot. The whole process took about a quarter of a century and is far from over.The art

than jacket. Yet wearing tatty old clothes for gardening is a relatively new phenomenon. If you look at the famous photographs of Vita Sackville-West in her high laced boots (which must have wasted at least 15 minutes of good gardening time just getting

and dissolve 1.3kg sugar in it• Take off the heat and add the flower heads• Slice 2-3 lemons into a bowl (at this point you can add citric acid to prolong shelf life)• Pour the liquid over the lemons, cover and leave for 24hrs• Strain into a bottle• Add ice

. So many dilemmas.I toyed with the idea of buying a living tree, with roots, but I didn't want it in the garden. If we had put it out of sight then it would have remained un-watered and would have died a miserable and lonely death. However

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