Sweet pea 'Blue Shift' 9 Jul 2013 | 02:48 am

Usually I plant sweet peas for the scent: this year, it was all about the colour scheme. This was a mistake: I really miss the perfume wafting in through the patio doors on a summer evening, and the p...

Front gardens, reloaded 20 Apr 2013 | 09:54 pm

Front garden getting you down? Perhaps it's time for a redesign ...

The HotBin: Aerobic hot composter review - part two 19 Apr 2013 | 09:39 pm

I really wanted to like the HotBin, I did. It's been well over a year since I started to trial this new composter, and in my initial review, I was excited about the HotBin's claims to safely compost a...

At last! Plastic planters that don't look naff 20 Mar 2013 | 02:44 pm

A decent container is hard to find: they're either gorgeous but pricey, or cheap and, well, cheap-looking. Or, even worse, hideous AND expensive. So I was delighted to find The Distinctive Planter Com...

My top five indoor succulents 13 Mar 2013 | 05:53 pm

Succulents have gone through a renaissance of late, in the garden at least: Pinterest is awash with pictures of containers, vertical walls and roofs full of them. But living in Bedfordshire, not Calif...

Wordless Wednesday: It's brassica monkeys out there! 13 Mar 2013 | 05:53 pm

Vine weevils ate my fern... and they will pay 18 Feb 2013 | 02:22 am

Look what the vine weevils have done to my Dryopteris wallichiana (and three heucheras - but, well, they're no great loss. I am definitely not a heuchera addict) - over winter, too! (Surely they shoul...

It's giveaway time ... 12 Feb 2013 | 01:43 am

Maybe it's because I've drunk a glass of Baileys tonight, or because I've completed my Seedy Penpals package, or perhaps because it's my birthday later this week, but I am feeling generous. So, I'm gi...

Houseplants part two: my top 5 houseplants even YOU won't be able to kill! 11 Feb 2013 | 04:17 am

Ages ago I wrote a post on reinventing the houseplant. I promised part two would list five of my favourite unkillable houseplants... at last, here it is. This is an edited-down version of a feature I ...

Reinventing the houseplant (part one) 28 Nov 2012 | 03:16 am

There is something profoundly depressing about a poorly houseplant. A garden plant that's having an off period doesn't tend to draw the eye in the same way, as there's usually something else to camouf...