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on an ugly garage or shed.More ways to attract birds to your gardenMaking a nesting area for birds on a pond video project.Installing a window bird feeder.Making fat cakes for birds.Making a bird box.Browse plants that are attractive to wildlifeBrowse a

to love was Gerard Mullen's "Home abhaile" - clean modernist rendered walls with windows showing the view of the lake and some good pockets of planting: well done but not exactly original. I have seen it before and the point of shows like

their prejudices: I, too, dismissed all hanging baskets and garishly coloured window boxes as tasteless and vulgar.But a couple of years ago, brothers and sisters, I saw the light. No matter how much I disliked the colour combinations I could not deny the fact

a tight-pruned lime and a small cypress. Nevertheless, the city is splashed all over with natural colour as sills, walls, yards and railings are covered with pots and window boxes.Some buildings in the rickety 'old quarter' are so bedecked they look

everywhere. A few years ago I cleared out the small window boxes of the dead and dying plants that were clearly not doing very well. All I found, instead of roots, were lots of these small (7-8mm) creamy white maggots — vine weevil grubs.The adult weevils

 domesticate it are always a disappointment. When I used to rush around London replanting window boxes we often used heathers for a bit of winter colour - along with those rather ghastly Solanum (the ones with orange berries). Although they looked sort of

to the great value seeds offer.Your creativity needn't be constrained by limited space. Crops can be grown in the tiniest area: in patio pots, baskets, window boxes, or even on a windowsill. The more space you have the more you can grow, and while few of us can

, garden gnomes, stone ornaments, expensive bonsais and even whole ponds, hedges and fences are just some of the items regularly reported as stolen. A friend of mine had one of two box cones stolen from outside her front door. Apart from ruining

, but the cold always gets to them eventually. No, these plants need to come indoors, so I’ll make space for them on the windowsill in our spare bedroom. The aeoniums, sedums and echeverias will enjoy the full light of this south-facing window, with just

If I had a shiny new pound for every person who has said to me, “Remember last year? We were all swanning around in shorts in March” I would be well on my way towards buying myself a very handsome dinner. This March, I look out of my window