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Last week marked the beginning of a very important part of the gardening year. It was the official launch of the National Gardens Scheme Yellow Book. As many of you will be aware this is the bible for garden visitors. It lists about 3000 gardens

This time of year the crab apples are at their most impressive: the trees are laden with little yellow or red apples that hang on until long after the last leaves have fallen. These are really useful smallish trees, not just for their colourful

cause people to doze off: instead I will share three of my tulip planting rules (there are more but I am, as ever, aware of the dozing off problem).Firstly - a yellow tulip is a waste of space. Not because they are not lovely ('West Point') but because

(no matter how beautifully photographed) is just about the most horrible shrub in the world. There. I've said it.It is not just the flowers —which are a particularly unforgiving, almost violent shade of yellow — but the timing. We are awash

When we think of irises our minds tend to wander towards May and great swathes of big, brassy flowers over sharp-sided, sword-shaped leaves. Either that or drifts of yellow flag iris on the sides of pools and streams. We tend to ignore February. Big

. For example my heart sinks at the first flash of a forsythia - such a violent yellow (like being mugged by a sunbeam), such horribly knobbly bark and such extraordinarily dreary leaves for the rest of the summer. As well as these unedifying qualities

colour is staggeringly good.There are quite a few varieties of Liquidambar available but L. styraciflua 'Worplesdon' is, I think, probably the best. The leaves turn deep red-cabbage-purple first before exploding into flashes of orangey-yellow. For a

and their exuberance. By 'big' I mean something that dwarfs its neighbours and reaches at least 2m high. I have five such plants in my garden.The first is Inula magnifica. I can see the cheerful, shaggy yellow flowers from my office and they never cease to amuse me

time as the new leaves, but the leaves are very fine. It is happiest on non-acidic soil.There is one outside my office and the leaves are just beginning to turn a rather fabulous buttery yellow. This yellow autumn colour is often seen as a bit second

with many fingered leaves, which turn yellow and red in autumn. The flowers are white with yellowy centres and these are followed by pink-stained, white berries that hold for most of the winter.Number two: Malus tschonoskii. Nearly perfect for all