Features

Julie Elkin is a member of Devon Beekeepers and a course tutor for the North Devon training courses. Too many people think keeping bees is the only way to help honeybees. ‘Taster days’ gives people the opportunity to handle bees and decide if keeping them is really for them but the emphasis is on how we can do much more in our gardens’ own plots to help all pollinators.

Spring at last, the garden a joy to behold filled with colour and fragrance, the hum of the bumblebee queens preparing to start their nests and my honeybees foraging on hellebores and crocuses as I write this. 

It may not be possible to entirely keep your garden free from weeds but if you need to keep winning the weed battle you need a strategy.

If you were to track every hour spent in your garden, you would probably find that you do an inordinate amount of weeding. And while the first few weeks of tearing up these intruders can prove mildly satisfying, the chore soon wears thin. Even more maddening—you are a few simple strategies away from your garden not needing weeds anymore.

Many gardeners decline the joys of indoor flowering plants which almost seem a pleasure of a bygone era.

There was a time when houses large and small sported a succession of home-grown indoor plants all year round. From the smallest succulent to the mightiest tree fern, gardeners always made time and space for plants that did well in the house.

This is much less likely to be the case nowadays. Many of us appear to have dismissed the idea that it is possible to grow plants for the house easily and well.

The unsung Minterne Gardens is tucked away in stunning Dorset countryside at Minterne Magna , where magnolias and rhododendrons tower over small streams in spring making it the best time for a visit.

The Himalayan woodland garden at Minterne House in the village of Minterne Magna is saddled between Dorchester and Sherborne on the A352 in Dorset. The gardens surrounding the Edwardian Arts and Crafts house built in the local Ham Stone designed by Leonard Stokes in 1905,  were landscaped in the style of Capability Brown who was involved in the landscaping at Sherborne Castle.