The day this issue of AG is available on newsstands (Tuesday, 23 April) is St George’s Day. As with the feast days of Saints Patrick, David and Andrew, it will be a day of national pride and commemoration. These three saints have the shamrock, the da

In the cool, damp air of spring, I think there is nothing nicer than noticing the scent of flowers in the garden, or as I walk along a street. As spring progresses and the air and soil warm, the number of fragrant blooms increase and reminds us of th

Marrows have long been grown, but other than for super-sized specimens at flower shows they’re no longer as popular as the many varieties of squash that have effectively replaced them. True, we still eat a lot of marrows, but solely as wee babies, fo

It has long been observed that we in the UK are rather obsessed with the weather. Generally speaking, much small talk and day-to-day chatter is filled with commentary of the season or temperature at hand. Over these past few months, with the sheer vo

Your plant recommendations from expert plantsman, Michael. Hello team, it’s a big moment for nostalgia this week as we talk dahlias! I have such fond memories of my grandparents’ garden, with beautiful tall dahlia plants topped with all the flower ty

I was in the garden centre the other day and the shelves of weedkillers and pesticides caught my eye. There are so many products for killing things - and would you look at the prices! We don’t use chemicals in the garden apart from fertilisers and th

Your lovely letters, emails and social media posts continue to flow in beautifully. Every message, poem, idea and comment matters. Please keep them coming. We will send out a thank you gift for every item published in the magazine so do please send y

In the pursuit of a picture-perfect garden, happiness can sometimes get forgotten, or left low down the ‘must do’ list. I am secretly planning a nature garden that echoes an important garden, the Japanese Gardens in Rivington, and this is an importan

Editor Kim Stoddart E-mail: Editor@amateurgardening.com Website: www.amateurgardening.com CEO Steve Wright Managing director Steve Kendall Group publisher Fiona Mercer Group web editor Rachel Harper Subscriptions marketing manager Claire Aspinall Ret

I’ve just given a talk on growing vegetables organically for Northleach Church in Gloucestershire. I always think growing vegetables is a bit like doing A levels in gardening, because it’s quite involved. You’re mostly dealing with annuals that will

Limited space shouldn’t limit your ability to grow things to eat. On my balcony, I harvest all kinds of organic greens, herbs and sun-kissed vegetables - and there’s nothing better than picking them super fresh. A trough filled with cut-and-come-agai

1 Multiple-sow as much in pots as you can, so space in your propagator is used to an optimum. Choose square pots, not round, for best space efficiency. Only prick out when essential, and ideally into small modules, rather than bigger pots. 2 Are you

Funding worth £247,502 has been given to 95 community garden projects across England, Wales and Northern Ireland by the National Garden Scheme. From social welfare and gardening projects that help the isolated, the disabled and the disenfranchised to

Gardening as we know, is far from plonking a few plants in the ground and hoping for the best (although it does sometimes feel that way). It’s about the world around us and the animals and creatures that choose to make our gardens, their homes. The p

I adore pumpkins, courgettes and squashes - and I know I’m not alone. So, let’s take a look at this vast group of huge edibles - there’s more to them than you might think. Botanically, all these plants are in the cucurbit family. Specifically, seven

AG readers are being asked to join a three-year pilot project that aims to count hedgehog numbers across the UK. Populations of the ‘nation’s favourite mammal’ have sharply declined since 2000, leading to the launch of the National Hedgehog Monitorin

With many parts of the country experiencing a very wet 2023/24 winter, and April traditionally being a notably wet month, let’s turn our eyes to the skies and work out how best to deal with rain on our plots. Weather extremes seem set to become more