Choosing, planting and keeping things alive.
150 guides in Garden
The three-winter programme that turns an overgrown, unpickable apple tree back into a productive one, and the quarter-of-the-crown rule that stops it turning into a thicket.
The season, the rootball size and the aftercare that decide whether a moved shrub survives, plus the plants that will not tolerate it at all.
The three cuts that matter, when each type of fruit tree should be pruned, and why less is usually better.
The three stages of root congestion, the signs that identify each, and why circling roots have to be cut rather than teased apart.
The plants that genuinely thrive on clay rather than merely survive it, and the reasoning that lets you judge anything not on the list.
The four things that all run out at once at the end of a container plant's first season, why the decline is so predictable, and the spring routine that prevents it.
Why clematis are the one garden plant deliberately planted deeper than they were growing, how much deeper, and the three other planting details that decide whether it thrives or sulks.
Getting a hole through terracotta, glazed ceramic, plastic or metal without splitting the pot: the right bit, why speed is the enemy, and the water that does most of the work.
Planting, pruning and netting the three main soft fruits, each of which fruits on different wood.
Why a low short stake produces a stronger tree than a tall one, where the stake goes relative to the wind, and when to take it off.
The test that takes ten seconds, why one pot size at a time matters, and what happens to a small plant moved into a very large pot.
How soil chemistry controls hydrangea colour, which varieties can change and which cannot, and the realistic way to keep a blue hydrangea blue.
Pears are not apples: they flower two to three weeks earlier, so frost catches them more often, and the popular varieties have pollination quirks that leave a lone tree barren.
Working through the five causes — age, origin, pruning, nitrogen and frost — in the order that identifies most cases quickly.
Making free plants from softwood and semi-ripe cuttings, and the humidity that decides whether they root.
Removing a large part of a young crop feels wrong and is the single most effective thing you can do for fruit size, next year's crop and the branches themselves.
Working out how much light you really have, and choosing plants that genuinely prefer it rather than tolerate it.
Rot at the base and shrivel at the tip are opposite failures with opposite fixes — telling them apart, and the preparation faults behind each.
Baskets peak in June and collapse in July for four specific reasons — exhausted feed, seed setting, root congestion and one dry day. What to do in each case and how to prevent it next year.
Splitting overgrown clumps to rejuvenate them and get free plants, and when each type should be divided.
Starting tubers into growth, the staking and pinching that produce a good plant, and the lifting and storing routine that gets them through a UK winter.
Autumn against spring sowing, the deep root run they need, the pinching that produces a bushy plant, and the one habit that decides whether they flower for six weeks or four months.
Pegging the first plantlet on each runner into a sunken pot, when to sever it, and the rolling three-year replacement that keeps a strawberry bed cropping instead of declining.
Citrus want a cool bright winter, not a warm dark one — which is why the living room kills them, and why leaf drop in January is nearly always a light, temperature or watering problem.