Garden

The best blooms to gift and decorate with.

The royal's passion for the outdoors has been put to good use once again.

Non-toxic plants to brighten your space.

How The Queen Mother’s spirit lives on in her grandson’s garden and Prince Charles’ delight at seeing Prince George and Princess Charlotte enjoy his patch of paradise.

Brace yourself.

Lifestyle guru Emma Hawkins makes entertaining that bit easier with her top tips for being the hostess with the mostess this spring.

At one of her famous summer garden parties, Her Majesty the Queen opened up to guests about the new royal baby and the delight she feels about having another girl in the family.

The secret of a glorious garden is to know how much you really will do in your garden every week or fortnight.

Australian horticulturist Phillip Johnson has claimed best in show at this year's Chelsea Flower Show with his ecologically sustainable Australian style billabong garden build in the heart of London.

Crab apple trees are hardier than a cherry tree and the blossom lasts longer in our harsher climate, too.

Not long ago, a 'good' backyard vegie garden had neat rows of cabbages and lots of tomatoes. There'd be carrots and green leafed silver beet and cucumbers, and green beans. Vegie gardens are changing.

Daylilies are so named because each flower only lasts for such a short time — sometimes truly only a day, sometimes for a few days.

The days are short, my toes are cold and all too many gardens are winter bare just now.

Autumn is the gentle time in Australia. Spring can suddenly present you with a frost that withers the new shoots and tomatoes, but autumn is mostly blue skies. Autumn rain is usually gentle, the great thunder heads of summer gone. As I write this the persimmons are ripe, big fat orange fruit, and the leaves […]

Once there was a nymph called Daphne… actually the rest of the story about why she was turned into a sweetly scented bush is far too lascivious a story for a family website. But while other ancient Greek nymphs have faded into history, Daphne still blooms in our winter gardens — and her perfume is […]

“It’s called a ‘winter rose’ or hellebore,” she said. I looked down at the ankle-high plant with dull green leaves and even duller green-white flowers, then at the bright red real rose glory blooming on the fence. Then I looked back at the hellebore. “They call this a rose?” I said. My elderly friend looked […]

Year after year I wonder what I’ll put in our front flower bed, and year after year, after tossing up between stocks and delphiniums, or California poppies, or a froth of nemesia or dianthus, I plant the same again — petunias. They’re not always the same petunia. These days I go for the ‘spreading petunias’, […]

Spring is magic. Blossoms, scents, vases crowded with roses, grass green, skies blue … the real challenge of spring is how to most enjoy it. So here are the six top spring essentials. 1. A new gardening hat This isn’t a ‘go to the races hat’ or a celebrity fashion statement, but a good garden […]

Fed up with flavourless mass market lemons? The Weekly's gardening expert Jackie French tells you how to grow your own luscious lemons.

Fences keep out next door’s dog and give us privacy, but they can be beautiful too. Gardening expert Jackie French tells you how to make your fence a feature of your backyard. The flower-covered fence: My dream fence is covered in mandevilla, with is shiny green leaves and white flowers with what is possibly the […]

Flowerbeds generally fall into two categories: weed-filled or wonderful. Weeds are always waiting to pounce on flowerbeds. They grow faster than flowers and cope with heat, cold and drought better. So how do you keep your flowerbeds stunning but weed-free? Follow these steps and you’ll have a spectacular garden in no time. 1. Don’t be […]

In summer, red-hot pokers are, well, just too red, and sometimes yellow too — great lumbering things with blooms often more than a metre high, that look gaudy in all the summer glare. Yes, they’re hardy — so indestructible they really need a semi-trailer to back over them to daunt them. But despite their magnificence, […]

Autumn’s leaves have fallen, the garden is looking bare, and those pots of bright blooms in the supermarket look terribly tempting. Should you … or shouldn’t you? The case for buying potted bloomers Potted flowers will usually stay bright and blooming for longer than a bunch of flowers. With luck your potted bloomers will give […]

March is the perfect time to get trim and terrific – not you (though gardening is a great tummy trimmer and stress buster), but your trees and shrubs.