Tips on how to make the most of your garden in the ever-changing weather - plus, find out what else needs doing in the garden this week.

By Hannah Stephenson


You would have thought that when he moved to a new house in Wicklow, known as the Garden of Ireland, Diarmuid Gavin, the enfant terrible of the gardening fraternity, would have wasted no time hauling in the diggers, landscaping materials, amazing plants and architectural altars.

Think again. The TV gardening maverick admits that it's easy to talk about garden design, to lecture on it and write books about it, but he developed a fear of it when it came to his own plot.

"I bought a new home, a show house, with a perfectly simple garden - wooden fences, sloped lawn, some scalloped shaped beds to the sides and that was it. But for the life of me, I couldn't decide on a good design which would satisfy the family," he says.

"I made the terrible mistake of ripping out everything that was here in the misguided belief that a clean sweep would provide some clarity. And then I did... nothing... for ages."

The situation became so dire that his local estate agent sheepishly approached and said Gavin was making his job selling properties very difficult because of the state of the garden.

"The ignominy! So, something needed doing. Even then I ran away from the issue. I started work indoors, knocking down walls, repainting and disposing of heavy black curtains."

Ever distracted with other projects, the TV gardener says that his own plot has progressed slowly.

"After some years I developed a plan and commissioned a beautiful illustration. Now at least we know what the garden will look like.

"The heavy building work started - a beautiful two storey veranda now crosses the back of the house allowing for outdoor living on two levels. Freshly planted wisterias are beginning to climb towards the sky, wrapped around reclaimed cast iron pillars. The foundation is in for a small summer house.

"Over Easter I shifted five tonnes of sieved topsoil in readiness for new raised vegetable beds. The big plan is to terrace - lawns, beds and borders.

"However, the big lesson is - don't do it my way. Just do as I say."

Gavin and his family live minutes from the coast. Their garden enjoys a sunny aspect but, like the rest of the country, there is plenty of rain. However, he has ploughed on and has achieved some measure of success in his choice of planting.

"The difficulty in the last few years has been the either freezing or just plain cold winters. I like to battle against the elements and the echiums that are growing up against the sitting room window are testament to that - they have been burnt by frost but even now stand at a majestic 10ft high. If you are a gardener you roll with the weather."


He offers the following design tips to gardeners who want their garden to look good, whatever the weather:

:: Keep the overall design simple. When you're making a plan, use a few sweeping lines to lead the eye from the viewing point, which is often the kitchen window, right down to the back of your plot.

:: Turn your lawn into a welcoming green wide pathway, which almost acts as an arrow, drawing the eye or the visitor on a journey.

:: Keep the planting simple. Mass plant low-growing shrubs such as dwarf purple berberis for colour or clouds of Pittosporum tobira 'Nanum'.

:: If your garden is extremely small, shaded or just damp, give up on a lawn altogether. It's not going to repay any maintenance and you will spend years and fortunes bemoaning the brown patches and invasion of weeds and moss. Dig it up and replace it with a top quality artificial turf. This can be wonderful, a green carpet which always looks good, can be easily cleaned, allows rainwater and snow to drain away and doesn't need cutting or feeding. For a top-of-the-range brand, try Easigrass.

:: Consider what your specimens will look like all year round, not only when covered in foliage or flower. If you're planting a tree, why not try a multi-stemmed birch? When bare from October to April it still has a lovely sculptural shape. Enhance this through the evening by uplighting through the use of a spotlight at its base.

:: Pay attention to a few detailed areas. Surprise and delight by framing your front door with a wonderful display of massed colour in pots. For instance, a mass of flowering cyclamen crammed into a 'long Tom' terracotta urn looks special and draws attention from less well tended parts of the garden.

:: See Diarmuid Gavin live at BBC Gardeners' World Live which runs from June 12-16 June at the NEC, Birmingham. For more information or to book tickets, visit www.bbcgardenersworldlive.com or call 0844 581 1340.


Best of the bunch - Saxifraga

These pint-sized flowering perennials look great in rock gardens and scree beds or, in the case of several varieties, planted en masse in the front of borders to add colour in late spring and early summer, acting as valuable ground cover. They produce densely packed rosettes of spoon-shaped leaves and flower freely in shades ranging from pink and red to white, cream and yellow. Among the most popular specimens for the rockery are S. paniculata 'Rosea', a pink form whose star-shaped flowers appear in May or June, S. 'Elizabethae', which produces yellow flowers and S. 'Jenkinsae', which bears large pink blooms. Types suitable for the front of a border include S. x urbium 'London Pride', which is more vigorous than other saxifraga species and can cope with full shade or full sun and any type of soil. Cut off the flower stems after flowering and you will be left with neat, green rosettes. All rockery types need well drained soil in a moist spot with some shade from the midday sun. Another variety, S. fortunei, has deciduous foliage that is green with red on the undersides, with white flowers that bloom from October to November.


Good enough to eat - Prevent cauliflower problems

They are known to be tricky to grow, largely because they suffer from the same problems as cabbage, including insect pests such as cabbage root fly and cabbage white butterflies. The best way to prevent such insects is to cover newly transplanted plants with garden fleece or fine netting. Cabbage caterpillars can be a real nuisance as they burrow inside the developing curds (heads) and ruin them. If your netting is securely anchored and held clear of the plants on wires or hoops, the adult butterflies will not be able to lay their eggs on the cauliflowers.

Cauliflowers can also be prone to clubroot disease, a fungal infection which attacks the plant through the soil via its root hairs. In a short period of time this will lead to massive swelling, distortion and severely hampered growth.

Clubroot can infect whenever the soil is moist and warm, so most new infections will tend to occur from mid-summer until late autumn. Resistant varieties such as 'Clapton' and 'Clarify' are available, and a combination of crop rotation and liming should help to prevent the disease.


Three ways to... Protect strawberries

1. Lay a bed of straw underneath emerging fruits on a dry, fine day to stop them getting wet and rotting.

2. Put netting over the plants, using short sturdy stakes to support the netting and keep the birds at bay.

3. Keep an eye on your crops for signs of botrytis (grey mould) and if you see any grey, fluffy mould on the berries cut them off and bin them, checking over the rest of the crop.


What to do this week

:: Pick small gooseberries to thin out heavy crops, leaving the remaining fruits well spaced out along the branches to continue growing to a larger size.

:: Prune late spring shrubs like forsythia and broom after flowering.

:: Continue to sow salad leaves, radish and spinach at intervals in late spring and early summer to ensure a continuation of cropping for the longest season possible.

:: Leave old flowers on some hellebores such as H. niger and H. orientalis to allow them to self-seed.

:: Regularly spike over border soil with a fork to alleviate compaction.

:: Cut spears of asparagus as they develop, using a long knife to sever them well below the soil surface.

:: Be vigilant with tender crops like tomatoes and French beans, only planting out when all risk of frost has passed.

:: Prune out old flower stems of euphorbias to provide more space for the developing stems.

:: Lift and divide primulas, polyanthus and forget-me-nots, digging them up and teasing them apart, ready for planting to grow on to a larger size.

:: Remove suckers on fruit trees growing up from their rootstocks.

:: Gradually lower the height of the blades on your mower as grass growth gets stronger.