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Breathe deeply as you enter my sitting room this month and you’ll take in the powerful, almost intoxicating fragrance of paper-white narcissi.I planted the Narcissus papyraceus bulbs last autumn, in a glass bowl layered with gravel. All I've done

coloured flowers, usually with a brilliant boss of yellow stamens at the centre. While many bedding plants remain dwarf and compact cosmos grows taller, swaying above them on the breeze. Seeds are cheap, and these tender summer bedding plants are always

.T. praestans 'Unicum', with bright red flowers, dwarf habit, and variegated foliage.T. 'Weisse Berliner', with pure ivory white flowers.Tulip bulbs can be planted far later than other bulbs and will still flower well in spring. Get daffodils and others planted

.By keeping an eye on the weather forecast, I can get outside and throw a large sheet of white fleece over my wisteria, plum and cordon apples to protect the flowers when frost is due. It's not much of an effort, but it will reward me with longer flowering

of apple trees to swell, flushed with pink, before the pure white flowers burst open. As my main reason for growing apple trees is for their fruit, I'm keen that the trees produce abundant blossom, and also that there will be plenty of bees to enjoy it

, rather than flowers. Nothing surprising so far - many plants need to get established and fill their pots before settling down into a regular flowering routine. To get agapanthus to flower well you must almost ignore them. They need to become pot bound, so

It won’t be long before daffodils, tulips, fragrant hyacinths and a host of other colourful flowers signal the arrival of spring, but if we want summer and autumn to provide similar displays we have to start planning and planting now

terracotta pot that was normally planted with bedding. Filled with loam-based John Innes compost my Nerium oleander took up residence in June, and was soon in flower. Now, I wouldn't describe its display as spectacular, but my shrub produced luxuriant stems

hyacinth produces a mini forest of stems, each carrying a small head of flower. It comes in blue, pink and white, and I'm hoping that a single bulb per pot will produce a really good display.

kept cool out of the sun. There it was left to its own devices, using the shrubby germander as a living plant support.C. 'Arabella' really comes into its own through late June into July, when its six blue petals open around a bold central boss of white