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Lavender is a plant that people are immediately drawn to in gardens because of its colour and heady scent! Lavender has beautiful aromatic foliage that brings heady scents to the garden, along with purple spikes of flowers. It has many uses, whether as an herb, for aromatherapy in the home, in sensory applications as you […]

Struggling with bare soil under trees or in deep shade? Lee Burkhill shares 16 expert ground cover plants for shade that really work in UK gardens.

Quick Answer Salvias thrive in full sun with free-draining soil. Plant hardy types like Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’ from April onwards and leave foliage standing through winter, cutting back in late March when new basal shoots appear. Deadhead after the first flush for a second wave of flowers. Tender types like ‘Amistad’ need a thick mulch […]

Quick Answer A sloped garden is not a problem to solve but a design opportunity to embrace. The most successful approach is to work with the gradient by creating generous, deep terraces connected by wide shallow steps, using retaining walls of sleepers, stone, or brick to hold each level, and slowing the eye and the […]

If you’re panicking at pruning or looking after Roses, don’t worry, even when I first started gardening, I avoided Roses for so long as I didn’t have the confidence to look after them. But after many years and being trained by some of the best in the business, I now love planting, designing with, and […]

Quick Answer Most conifers cannot regenerate from old brown wood, which means once they outgrow their space, your options are limited to careful staged reduction, acceptance and maintenance, or removal. Unlike deciduous hedges and shrubs, conifers cannot be cut back to bare wood and expected to recover. Understanding this biological reality before deciding how to […]

Quick Answer Roses fail to flower for eight main reasons: not enough sun, wrong pruning time or technique, too much nitrogen fertiliser, lack of deadheading, drought or waterlogging stress, pest and disease pressure, blind shoots, or the plant being too newly planted to flower freely. Most of these are simple to diagnose and straightforward to […]

Quick Answer In July you can plant container-grown dahlias, hydrangeas and buddleja for instant summer colour, sow biennial flowers like foxgloves and wallflowers for next spring, and get autumn-flowering bulbs like nerines and colchicums into the ground. In the kitchen garden, July is your last chance to sow French beans, carrots and radishes for an […]

Real small garden makeover breakdown: £4,500-£9,000 costs, design decisions that actually work, and the specific mistakes I see repeated on every compact garden project. Honest advice from a BBC Garden Rescue designer.

Quick Answer Clematis most commonly dies back from clematis wilt, a fungal disease that causes sudden stem collapse, but the majority of cases blamed on wilt are actually caused by slug damage, physical stem injury, waterlogging, or drought stress. Cut all affected stems back to ground level, dispose of the material without composting it, and […]