Expert Gardening Tips
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Credit: Alamy The top salad leaves to grow in your garden for summer garnishes
Mark Diacono tells us his top salads to plant to accompany barbecues this summer season.
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Credit: Anna Stowe Botanica / Alamy Alan Titchmarsh: How each of our English country gardens can play their part in saving the planet
Our columnist Alan Titchmarsh talks extreme weather, climate change and the faith all gardeners have in the extraordinary ability of nature to bounce back from pretty much anything.
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Trees bring us so much joy - they deserve our care. Credit: Alamy Stock Photo Looking after trees: Signs of stress, what to do, and when to call the experts
Kenton Smith and Tony Kirkham, author of the Haynes guide Trees, give their tips on making sure the trees in your garden stay healthy.
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A bathtub surrounded by Primrose Hall peonies with a neon sign on the wall? It can only be the Chelsea Flower Show... Charlie Hopkinson/Country Life Credit: Charlie Hopkinson/Country Life I hadn't been to RHS Chelsea for years, but it's better than ever — just don't ask strangers to share your taxi
After staying away for a few years Charles Quest-Ritson is delighted to report that the Chelsea Flower Show is as great a treat as ever — but that's not to say there aren't a few things that have changed...
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Oak processionary caterpillars sit on an oak tree trunk. Credit: Alamy Stock Photo Brace yourself for the new invasive pests, from to oak-munching caterpillars to Asiatic hornets
Charles Quest-Ritson takes aim at the foreign invaders who seem set to ravage our gardens.
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Papaver cambricum, aka Welsh poppy – welcome it when it grows. Credit: Alamy Alan Titchmarsh: The weeds I welcome with open arms
Our columnist Alan Titchmarsh used to spend hours ridding his garden of anything he hadn't planted himself. These days he sees things differently — and even welcomes their arrival.
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Freshly harvested Madeleine Angevine grapes glinting in the sun are a site to warm the soul. Even more so if you've grown them yourself. Credit: Alamy Stock Photo The simple guide to growing your own grapes
If you pick the right variety and get the conditions spot on, you'll be eating your own grapes under the shade of your own vine in three years, says Mark Diacono.
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Heart leaf bergenia (Bergenia cordifolia 'Nebellicht'). Credit: Alamy Stock Photo Mark Griffiths: Why gardening is vastly richer, wider and deeper than in Gertrude Jekyll’s day
Gertrude Jekyll loved bergenais, but she'd be the first to agree that the variety around today far outshines what was available to her as Mark Griffiths explains.
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Credit: Getty Images The common garden plants that are deadly to dogs and cats – and what to do if they eat one
Many beautiful and common plants in the average English garden can prove fatal to household pets. Peter Green, a veterinary surgeon, gives his advice on some of the most common things to look out for.
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Credit: Alamy Stock Photo Alan Titchmarsh: The 1950 gardening trick which will bring you truly spectacular garden borders
Alan Titchmarsh revisits one of the books which first sparked his love of gardening – and shares one of the finest tips found therein.
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Credit: Alamy Stock Photo Plastic-free gardening: Five ways to help keep your garden free from pointless plastic
It's not just food, clothes and household stores which use an absurd amount of plastic packaging these days – gardening gear is also full of it, from plant pots to tools.
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Credit: Alamy Cultivating mint: What varietals to plant, where to plant them and whether they should be used for jelly or juleps
Mark Diacono explains why mint is for even the incurably incompetent horticultural enthusiast.
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Tree Canopy Walkway, Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, Cape Town, South Africa, with Table Mountain in background. Credit: Alamy Stock Photo Alan Titchmarsh: Why Kirstenbosch is the gardener’s garden
Alan Titchmarsh waxes lyrical about one of the world's truly magnificent gardens.
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Wisteria on a house wall in the village of Broadway in the Cotswolds. Credit: Alamy Alan Titchmarsh: A foolproof guide to growing wisteria
Alan Titchmarsh gives advice for growing this most glorious of horticultural spectacles.
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Tulips in a country house garden. Credit: ©Val Corbett/Country Life How to grow tulips, by the gardener who creates the incomparable display at Parham Park
Parham Park’s head gardener Tom Brown shares his tips on how to grow tulips.
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Red-girdled Mining-bee (Andrena labiata) adult male in a dandelion flower. Powys, Wales. April. How to attract bees to your garden
Dave Goulson, Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Sussex and founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, explains how to attract bees to your garden.
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Credit: Moment Editorial/Getty Alan Titchmarsh: Why I've decided that life's too short to keep growing the same old things in my greenhouse
Alan Titchmarsh's greenhouse has become a bit predictable – but he's now got big plans to mix things up.
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Credit: Alamy Stock Photo Jason Goodwin: How legginess, though desirable on humans, is the devil in seedlings
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Credit: Alamy The best daffodils and narcissi to grow your garden, whether in pots, grass or borders
With more than 26,000 to choose from, it can be agonising deciding which narcissus to grow. Charles Quest-Ritson asks daffodil doyenne Christine Skelmersdale for ideas.
