So if you have chalky soil it’s likely to be shallow, dry, alkaline (or acidic) and nutrient poor! But don’t despair, there are plenty of plants that are up to the challenge.

Trees and shrubs

Chamaecyparis lawsoniana

This conifer will tolerate most conditions, although it prefers a sunny spot. It’s a good choice for hedging in a chalky garden or, if you want an architectural shrub, try Chamaecyparis lawsoniana ‘Erecta Aurea’ (shown here) which grows to only 2 metres tall. It has a compact, conical shape and bright yellow/green foliage.

Cornus mas

Growing up to 4 metres tall, the ‘Cornelian cherry’ is actually a species of dogwood and some varieties have the brightly coloured young stems typical of this genus of plants. It can be grown as a shrub or small tree and is prized for the bright yellow blossom which appears on bare stems in late winter.

Berberis darwinii

This dense, evergreen shrub will grow to 2.5 metres height and spread and is happy in any soil so long as it isn’t waterlogged – so chalk is ideal. Bright orange flowers appear in the spring followed by blue/black fruit in the summer. It requires little maintenance, which is good because the stems are covered in very sharp thorns!

Against a wall

Clematis

These climbers prefer a slightly alkaline soil and are happy on growing on chalk. If you want to cover a wall or shed then Clematis montana var. rubens ‘Tetrarose’ is a great choice. It will climb up to 8m metres and bears violet coloured flowers with yellow centres throughout the summer. Keep its roots cool by mulching well.

Jasminum nudiflorum

The winter jasmine is an excellent partner plant for clematis as it provides winter interest with small yellow flowers appearing in winter and early spring. It doesn’t ‘climb’ like the clematis does, so its gracefully long stems will need to be tied into a support.

Herbaceous plants

Paeonia

Peonies often work well on chalk soils. Paeonia lactiflora ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ is a popular choice. It grows to about 1 metre height and spread and has large, pink double flowers in the summer. Peonies prefer a sheltered spot and will require support as they grow.

Dianthus

Pinks are happiest in well drained and neutral to alkaline soils, so are an ideal choice on chalk. Try Dianthus ‘Doris’ for pale pink flowers over a compact mound of grey/green foliage. It looks great at the front of a bed or border.

Helenium

Perennial ‘sneezeweeds’ such as Helenium ‘Moerheim Beauty’ (shown here) are happy in any soil and cope well with chalk. Their daisy-like flowers appear in summer and are a perfect selection for hot borders. Taller varieties will require support.

Crocus

Preferring well drained soil, crocuses are a good plant for spring colour on chalk soil. Crocus chrysanthus ‘Cream Beauty’ will work well and reward you with creamy flowers that are deep yellow in the centre, from early spring.

Use our plant selector to search for more ideas for chalky soils.

Back as far as Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD) the mistletoe was used in rituals and medicines. Pliny told of Druids climbing into sacred oak trees to harvest mistletoe with golden sickles. The mistletoe would be caught before it touched the ground to ensure that it didn’t lose its special powers.

To what extent the Druids did use mistletoe in this way is unclear, but the stories persist. For example, in the Asterix cartoons by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, the Druid Getafix harvests mistletoe in the way that Pliny describes, using it to create the special potion which gives Asterix his superhuman strength.

Greek, Roman and Norse mythology all contain stories about the humble mistletoe. Perhaps the best known is that of the Norse god Baldr. He and his mother, Frigg, both had dreams of his impending death, so Frigg made every object swear not to harm her son, except the mistletoe, which was considered too young and harmless to take the oath.

The mischievous god Loki heard about this and made a spear or arrow out of mistletoe, which he gave to Baldr’s blind brother Höðr. Not realising what he was doing, Höðr killed Baldr with the mistletoe. As a result, tradition has it, Frigg’s tears became the mistletoe berries and she ordered the plant to grow high in trees so that it would be out of reach and unable to do further harm. Other traditions suggest that she made the mistletoe a symbol of peace and friendship to make up for its part in the terrible accident.

Today mistletoe is hung from the ceiling and used for the traditional Christmas kiss. This probably derives from ancient fertility traditions. It’s easy to see how this little plant became related to fertility when you consider that it retains its evergreen foliage while the deciduous host plant has shed its leaves and that its berries appear in the depths of winter. The forking shape of its branches, with pairs of leaves, were also associated with the shape of sexual organs and you can work out for yourself the symbolism of the sticky juice in the berries! As a result mistletoe was used to encourage fertility, as a medicine, a charm for young ladies looking for husbands, and in the kissing custom we retain today.

As well as representing fertility, the use of mistletoe as a symbol of peace and luck (following the Norse mythology) is common throughout Europe. During the First World War cards sent from the Front often included mistletoe as a message of peace for loved ones.

Tradition also has it that mistletoe brought into the house at Christmas (or mid-winter/new year depending on the custom) should be kept hanging there for 12 months to protect the house from evil spirits. It should then be burned before the fresh mistletoe is brought in.

Find out more about the UK mistletoe, Viscum album, including how to grow it in your own garden.

Mistletoe image courtesy of dan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The situation is made worse when the soil is shallow or sandy as it will retain little water. In this situation you can help improve the soil by regularly mulching with organic matter (such as well-rotted manure or garden compost), doing so when the soil is wet to lock in the moisture.

But don’t lose heart! There are plenty of plants which will cope with these unfavourable conditions and still provide you with colour and interest.

Shrubs

Ribes alpinum

Growing to 1.5m height and spread, the alpine currant is a deciduous shrub with mid-green foliage and copes well with heavy shade. If there’s a male and female planted together then the female will bear scarlet berries in the summer. If the shade is more dappled then the cultivar R. a. ‘Aureum’ can be planted, which has brighter, yellow-green leaves.

Sarcococca confusa

Prized for the fragrance of its winter flowers, the Christmas box is a dense, evergreen shrub growing to about 2m tall by 1m wide. The flowers are followed by glossy black fruits. It can be grown as a shrub or trimmed back as a hedge.

Skimmia japonica

This rounded, evergreen shrub has dark red flower buds in autumn and winter which open into creamy-coloured flowerheads in the spring. If there’s a male nearby, the female shrub will then bear bright red berries (choose S. j. subsp. reevesiana for a plant which has both male and female flowers). It eventually grows to 6m height and spread.

Camellia japonica

Camellias are a great choice for shade as the shelter will help protect the delicate flowers from late frosts and morning sunlight which can ‘burn’ the petals. There are many cultivars of Camellia japonica, so you can find the perfect size and colour choice for your garden.

For example, C. j. ‘Madame Haas’ is shown here.

Fatsia japonica

The Japanese aralia is a very architectural, almost tropical looking plant with large, glossy, palmate leaves. In the autumn clusters of cream-coloured flowers pop up through the foliage. It grows up to 4m in height and spread but can be cut back to reduce the size. A variegated cultivar is available with cream edged foliage.

Herbaceous perennials

Convallaria majalis

Lily-of-the-valley is a petite, deciduous perennial which grows to 20cm tall. It has white, fragrant flowers on arching stems in late spring. It spreads well and can also be used as ground cover. Try C. v. var. rosea for delicate pink flowers or C. v. ‘Albostriata’ for cream-striped leaves.

Liriope muscari

This autumn flowering, evergreen perennial has long, narrow green leaves. The violet flowers appear on long spikes and are followed by black berries. It grows to 30cm tall and 45cm wide. Try L. m. ‘Monroe White’ for white flowers or L. m. ‘Variegata’ for white striped foliage.

Iris foetidissima

Although it doesn’t have the most attractive name, the stinking iris only smells unpleasant if you crush its leaves. It bears purple flowers in early summer above the long, evergreen leaves, growing to 90cm tall. For yellow flowers try I. f. var. citrina.

Asplenium scolopendrium

The hart’s tongue fern (shown left) takes its name from the shape of the long, evergreen, tongue-like, bright green leaves. The edges of the leaves, which arch out from the base, are often rippled and mature foliage will have dark red spore cases on the underside, arranged in a stripes. Try cultivars from the Crispum Group for more wavy leaf margins.

Ground cover

Geranium nodosum and Geranium phaeum

These deciduous geraniums will thrive in dark, dry conditions. Geranium nodosum has purple-pink flowers from spring to autumn and grows to 50cm height and spread. For a larger plant try Geranium phaeum, which grows to 80cm tall and 45cm wide and has dark violet flowers. Both species have a range of cultivars available with flowers in shades of white, pink, purple or blue.

Pachysandra terminalis

The Japanese spurge (shown right) is an evergreen, bushy plant which will grow to only 20cm tall but will spread much further than this, providing excellent year round ground cover. In early summer deep pink buds appear followed by small spikes of fragrant white flowers.

Tolmiea menziesii

This semi-evergreen, spreading plant (commonly called the pickaback plant) produces heart-shaped, ivy-like leaves and grows to 60cm tall by 1m spread. In early summer spikes of chocolate-brown flowers appear. For paler, mottled leaves try the cultivar T. m. ‘Taff’s Gold’.

Vinca

Periwinkles, whether Vinca minor or Vinca major, will cope with shady, dry conditions and provide ground cover with their long, trailing stems. V. minor grows to 20cm tall while V. major reaches 45cm. Various cultivars of both species are available, providing flowers in a range of blues and violets, some with variegated leaf margins. Vinca plants can be invasive, so be prepared to cut them back regularly.

For the hardened horticulturalist

A wormery is an excellent idea for a keen gardener, particularly if they don’t have space for a compost heap. The worms will merrily gorge on kitchen waste and produce wonderful (and free!) liquid feed for the garden. We like the sturdy Wormcity wormeries which are available in a range of sizes.

In cold weather even the most dedicated gardener can be put off, but not with a pair of heated insoles in their wellies! Available from retailers including Amazon and Greenfingers, they are battery operated and most use an adjustable ankle strap to hold the battery pack.

A solar radio is a great gardener’s gift as they can listen to their favourite stations while in the garden, without the hassle of cables or having to turn the house radio up so high that the whole neighbourhood can hear it! AM/FM solar radios start at around £15 while you can buy a Roberts DAB solar radio (which will also run off the mains) from £65.

There are some things which every gardener always needs more of, so why not buy them a trug and then fill it with all the gardening essentials. Gardening gloves (especially warm winter ones), twine, plant labels, plant label pens, fresh secateurs blades, hand cream and Jeyes disinfectant fluid are items that no gardener can have too much of.

If you’re buying for the gardener who has everything, why not treat them to a new skill? Many open gardens around the country offer courses throughout the year on a wide range of topics. RHS gardens and university botanic gardens are particularly good sources. Send them on a course to brush up the basics of pruning or propagation, or perhaps go in depth with a course on hybridization or grafting.

For the casual gardener

For many people a garden is as much about relaxation and socialising as it is about growing the perfect paeony or cultivating an award winning veg patch. There are plenty of great gifts for those who prefer peaceful pottering in the garden.

‘Plant Theatre’ have created the perfect combination of gardening and relaxation in their ‘Grow your own cocktail’ kit. The kit contains seeds and pots to grow 6 different plants with instructions on how to use them to create 18 cocktail recipes. The plants include cucamelon, borage and lime basil.

Many designer names are coming into the gardening market, meaning that gardeners can truly garden in style. Big brands such as Orla Kiely and Joules are creating beautiful gardening accessories and equipment, including gloves, pots and kneelers. Or you can personalise a basic pair of gardening gloves to suit the recipient. Sew on a fur trim, red felt ‘painted nails’ or some festive tinsel to make your own original design.

Lighting can make any garden look special, even in the depths of winter. While solar lights are great for the summer, in the winter battery powered lights can take their place. So why not buy them a string of LED fairy lights to decorate trees or shrubs. Buy ones which automatically come on in the dark or have a timer on them (so they don’t have to go out to turn them on and off) and some rechargeable batteries to power them, and they’ll be able to add a little winter sparkle to their garden.

Getting kids into the garden

Teach children about how plants grow with a pack of beanstalk seeds which reveal a secret message as they grow, by Beecycle. As the seed germinates a secret message (such as ‘Merry Christmas’) appears on the cotyledon (the first, embryonic leaf that appears).

Give the green fingered child in your life some great gardening ideas with the RHS ‘Ready, steady, grow!’ book of gardening projects. From growing salad to creating a fairy ring, the projects take from 1 day to 12 weeks to complete, suiting all attention spans!

If you’re buying for kids who love Hallowe’en, then why not get them a kit to grow their own pumpkin ready for next October 31st? Scott and Co have a ‘Percy the Pumpkin’ kit which supplies everything needed, including carving tools for the final product. Alternatively, create your own kit with pumpkin seeds, pots, coir pellets and growing instructions.

You can bring some family fun into the garden (well, when the weather improves anyway!) with giant versions of favourite games. You can buy giant Twister, snakes and ladders, noughts and crosses, playing cards, Kerplunk, draughts, chess, Jenga and pick up sticks – so there’s something to suit everyone (and to suit your budget).

Japanese anemones – Anemone hupehensis

These autumn flowering blooms were brought back to England from China in 1844 by Robert Fortune, hence the oriental part of their name.

The genus name Anemone may derive from the Greek ‘anemos’ meaning ‘wind’ and as a result they used to be called ‘windflowers’. Back to the times of Pliny it was suggested that the flowers would only open when the wind blows, although the name is more likely to result from the fact that anemones can grow on windy, exposed sites.

Another explanation is that the name comes from Adonis, the Greek God of beauty and desire, because the Persian for his name is ‘Naamen’. Aphrodite was said to have fallen in love with Adonis and, when he was killed while hunting, she wept over him as he died, and the anemone grew where either her tears or his blood soaked the ground.

Winter jasmine – Jasminum nudiflorum

Jasmines are so named from the original Persian name ‘yasmin’. The winter flowering jasmine is botanically called nudiflorum, meaning ‘naked’. But there’s nothing rude about this! It’s simply a reference to the fact that the yellow flowers appear on bare, or naked, stems. Along with the Japanese anemone (above) this plant was introduced to Europe by Robert Fortune in 1844.

Oregon grape holly – Mahonia

The genus Mahonia was named after Bernard M’Mahon, a political refugee from Ireland, who popularised gardening in America in the early 1800s.

The common name ‘Oregon grape’ is simply explained – the plant originates from the American far west and the berries resemble grapes, they can also be used to make wine.

The bright yellow flowers of Mahonia x wagneri ‘Pinnacle’ are shown here.

Poinsettia – Euphorbia pulcherrima

The poinsettia originated in Mexico, where legend has it that a young girl, too young to provide a gift to celebrate Jesus’ birthday, instead picked some weeds and presented them at church, where they sprang into the crimson blooms of the poinsettia. The plant’s common name is a dedication to Dr Joel Roberts Poinsett, who was the first US ambassador to the Republic of Mexico from 1825 to 1829. A keen botanist, Dr Poinsett brought the plant to America. He was also the founder of the National Institute for the Promotion of Science and the Useful Arts, which is now known as the Smithsonian Institution.

The genus, Euphorbia, is said to be named after Euphorbus, physician to King Juba of the ancient kingdom of Mauretania (in North Africa).

Violet/pansy – Viola

The viola is said to be named after Io, a young girl who the God Zeus fell in love with. To hide her from his wife, Hera, he changed Io into a young cow. But Hera became suspicious when she saw the pretty white heifer with violets in her mouth and asked Zeus to give her the cow, which he did. Eventually, after making the heifer’s life a misery, Hera changed Io back into a girl, but only once Zeus had promised never to look at her again.

Violas have long been associated with love; the Elizabethan called them ‘heart’s-ease’, Napoleon had a locket containing violets picked from his beloved Josephine’s grave and the name ‘pansy’ derives from the French ‘penser’, to think, relating them to purity of thought.

Viola ‘Huntercombe Purple’ is shown here.

Charming camellias

Camellias are an excellent option for growing against north facing walls, so long as they are in a fairly sheltered spot. Flowering in spring, camellias are available in many different colours, from brilliant whites to deep scarlets.

A north facing position will prevent the morning sunlight burning the flowers and should keep the display going for longer. Camellias are available in a wide range of sizes, from petite 1m shrubs to larger specimens which will reach over 10m tall. Shown here is Camellia japonica ‘Virginia Carlyon’, which grows to 10m.

Valuable viburnums

Viburnums are attractive, evergreen shrubs which will grow happily in a north facing location. They have dark black/blue berries which provide a useful food source for birds. Viburnum tinus ‘Variegata’ has yellow edged leaves which add year round colour. Growing to 2.5m height and spread, it bears white flowers in winter and spring.

Viburnum x burkwoodii is an alternative of about the same size. Its fragrant flowers are a dainty, pink/white colour. Viburnum x juddii has the same pretty flowers, but is a smaller bush at just 1.5m height and spread.

Colourful creepers

Deciduous creepers will rapidly cover a north facing wall with colourful foliage, although they can be very vigorous, so don’t plant them in a small area! They have insignificant flowers in summer followed by black/blue berries in the autumn.

Parthenocissus quinquefolia, the Virginia creeper, and Parthenocissus tricuspidata, Boston ivy, both grow up to 20m in height and are invaluable for covering large walls. The palmate leaves become vibrantly coloured in autumn, the Virginia creeper with bright oranges and reds, the Boston ivy with a more subtle, purple colour.

Parthenocissus henryana, the Chinese Virginia creeper, is less vigorous, growing to 1m tall. The leaves are a deep bronze/green colour with very attractive, bright silver-white veins.

Pretty pyracanthas

The pyracantha, or firethorn, has year round interest and will happily grow in any aspect, including north facing walls. The evergreen shrubs bear white flowers in early summer, followed by brightly coloured berries in the autumn, which persist into the winter. The berries, a useful source of food for birds, are bright yellow, orange or red, depending on the variety chosen. Pyracantha will grow 3 to 5 metres up a wall. The stems have sharp spines, useful for garden boundaries and also providing a safe nesting spot for birds.

Pyracantha ‘Soleil d’Or’ is a good choice for a north facing wall. It reaches 3m in height and 2.5m in spread and has golden-yellow berries which will brighten up any shady area.

Climbing clematis

While most clematis prefer a sunny spot, Clematis montana, and the larger flowered Clematis montana var. grandiflora, can be grown against a north facing wall so long as the soil is not acidic (it can also be container grown). This deciduous climber will grow to 12m tall and 4m spread and bears white flowers in early summer.

Interesting ivies

Ivies are often undervalued, viewed as a nuisance in most gardens. However, in a dark spot an ivy can be invaluable in bringing a splash of light and interest. As well as clinging onto a wall they will grow horizontally, providing ground cover.

For a large area Hedera colchica ‘Sulphur Heart’, shown here, is an excellent choice. Growing to 5m tall, the large leaves are yellow at the centre, becoming green at the margins. It’s easy to grow and can be pruned at any time of year to control the spread. If you have less space then Hedera helix ‘Goldchild’ will grow to just 1m high. The leaf margins have a thick edging of yellow, lightening up the darkest corner.

Top it off with a tropaeolum!

The flame flower, Tropaeolum speciosum, will reach 3m height and spread and has bright red flowers through summer and autumn. This deciduous, twining climber will grow up a wall with support, or is an excellent choice for growing through a hedge (such as yew). It prefers its roots to be in cool shade and won’t grow well in alkaline or chalk soils, though it can be planted in a container so you can control the growing environment more easily.

When collecting seeds from hybrids you may find that the resulting plants are different (for example in flower colour or size) to the original or, in some cases, will not grow at all because the seeds are sterile. But sometimes the diversity can bring pleasing results and it can be fun to see what’s going to appear.

How to collect seeds

There are different methods to collect seeds, depending on the type of fruit. When the seeds are contained in pods (such as Nigella seedheads, shown below) you should remove the pod from the plant when it’s ripe, but before it opens. Keep it in a paper bag, or between sheets of newspaper, in a warm room and they should open and shed their seeds for you to gather up. The same method can be used for catkins or cones.

Winged fruit (such as from acers) should be picked from the plant when they’re ripe. You can either leave the wings on or remove them to make it easier to handle the fruit.

Nuts can be removed from the plant when still green, or when ripe and ready to fall – the method will vary slightly from plant to plant. Remove the outer husks before sowing, but retain the shell of the nut.

Fleshy fruits (such as berries) should be collected just as they turn from green to their ripe colour. If the fruit is large (eg apples) you can cut it open and take the seeds out by hand. For smaller fruit (such as holly berries) place the fruits in a sieve and mash them up under running water. Put the resulting pulp in a container full of water, give it a shake and allow the contents to settle. Then gently pour the pulp and water out of the jar, which should leave the seeds at the bottom. Dry them on paper towels.

How to sow or save them

Always discard any seeds which appear to have imperfections or damage, and any which show signs of disease or pests. If you have used the jar method to separate fleshy fruit from its seeds, don’t use any seeds which floated as these will be dead.

If you want to plant the seeds yourself then you can do so straight away. Find out about sowing seeds. If you want to store them then most seeds are best kept in paper bags within an airtight container. Add desiccant to remove excess moisture (like those little silica gel sachets you often get in shop packaging) to prevent too much moisture accumulating. Some seeds, such as walnut and oak seeds, need to be kept moist, so store these in damp vermiculite or sand. If possible store the seeds in your fridge as this will help them keep for longer.

Find out more about collecting seeds…

Bare ground

Making sure that the ground is covered will greatly reduce the time needed to control weeds. Cover bare ground with paving, decking, evergreen perennial ground cover plants or bark mulch to keep every inch as low maintenance as possible.

Lawns

If you want low maintenance, then you need to manage your expectations about lawns. To have a ‘perfect’ lawn you need to spend a lot of time mowing, scarifying, aerating, feeding, weeding, and more. So you can either accept that you’ll have an untidy lawn or replace it with a lower maintenance solution such as paving, decking or fake turf.

Plants

Choose plants which don’t require too much work. Plants such as roses, tender perennials and formal hedging take more work than trees and shrubs, so think carefully before you plant. Don’t select plants which will eventually outgrow their allotted space, otherwise you’re giving yourself the extra work of cutting them back or moving them.

Putting plants in containers and hanging baskets might seem to be a low maintenance solution, but they will require regular watering, feeding and the compost will need to be refreshed each year. Whereas plants growing in the ground will often be able to look after themselves once they’re established.

Shaping your borders

If you are going to include beds and borders in your garden then you can make them easier to maintain by edging them in brickwork or steel edging strips, which won’t need to be neatened each year, and which you can mow straight up to. Having straight edged beds and borders, rather than curves, will make it cheaper as there will be a wider range of edging products you can use.

Water features

Introducing water into the garden can be a low maintenance way to bring interest and movement into the garden. A small, pebble based water feature should only require maintenance once a year to clean out the pump and an occasional top up in dry summers. Ponds can also be fairly low maintenance – make sure you include oxygenator plants to help keep the water clean, and surface floating plants to shade the water and discourage algae growth.

Get more ideas for low maintenance gardening

Image courtesy of dan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Bleeding heart/
lady in the bath

While most of us will know Dicentra spectabilis as ‘Bleeding heart’, due to the flower shape which looks like a dripping heart (shown here), the name ‘lady in the bath’ may not be as familiar. But turn the flower upside down and you’ll see that it does, indeed, resemble a lady in the bath!

The derivation of the botanical name is more boring. Dicentra derives from the Greek ‘di’, meaning ‘two’, and ‘kentron’ meaning ’spur’, referring to the two upward pointing parts of the flower (known as spurs). Spectabilis comes from the Latin meaning ’spectacular’, which the flower display certainly is at the height of its season.

Daffodils

Nothing quite heralds spring like a bed of daffodils. Dorothy Wordsworth, sister of the poet William, described these cheery flowers perfectly when recollecting that they “tossed and reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind”. The botanical genus name ‘Narcissus’ relates to the myth of the Greek youth Narcissus who became so infatuated with his own reflection in a pool that, upon realising that he could never possess it, died. The flower sprang up from the spot. However, it’s not clear whether the flower was named after the youth of the legend or vice versa.

The common name daffodil is thought to originate from Asphodel, a genus of flowering plants, the yellow variety of which is similar to daffodils. Affodell was a variant of Asphodel and became ‘affodil. The ‘d’ is thought to have been added either due to the Dutch ‘de’ (meaning ‘the’) being added to make “de ‘affodil”, or due to Asphodels being known in Britain as “bastard ‘affodil”.

Sowbread

It doesn’t seem quite right that the petite, delicate cyclamen should be lumbered with such an unbecoming common name. The name first appeared in the 1551 ‘herbal’ (a book of plants used for medicinal purposes) written by botanist William Turner. Here it was named ‘Sawesbread’, which has over time become sowbread. The origins of the name refers to the purported use of cyclamen roots as food for pigs.

The genus name Cyclamen is more simplistic in its origins, coming from the Greek ‘kyklo’ meaning ‘circle’, and probably referring to the stems, which curl up when the flower is spent and the seeds are developing.

Columbine/Granny’s bonnet

It’s not hard to work out why Aquilegia flowers are known as Granny’s bonnet when you look at the pretty, nodding flowers of this cottage garden favourite. However Columbine is slightly less easy to guess at. The word derives from the Latin ‘columba’, meaning ‘dove’. There are various theories about why these plants are dove-like. Some believe that if you hold the flowers upright then they resemble a ring of doves drinking, others consider the leaf shape to be bird-like, while others think that the shape of the flower, with one petal and all the sepals removed, looks a little like a hovering dove.

The name Aquilegia is thought to either derive from the Latin ‘aquila’, meaning ‘eagle’, due to the flower’s spurs resembling eagles’ talons, or from ‘aquilegus’, meaning a ‘water container’, relating to the similarity of the flower’s shape to Greek amphoras.

Lilac

Which came first the name of the colour or the name of the plant? Well, in this case we know the answer; the name of the plant came first. The lilac was so named after the Arabic word laylak or the Persian word nylac, both meaning ‘blue’. The plant was introduced into France in the 16th century. It wasn’t until the late 18th century that ‘lilac’ also came to mean a pale purple/pink colour.

The botanical genus name for lilac, Syringa, derives from the Greek ’syrinx’, meaning ‘pipe’, because the stems of lilacs can be hollowed out and were used in Turkey to make pipes.

Use it yourself or give it to someone who needs it

The most obvious answer to garden waste is to have a compost heap producing organic matter to add back into your garden (a typical garden compost heap is shown on the right). Find out more about composting. You may find that your local authority will subsidise the cost of a compost bin.

You can make your own liquid fertiliser for the garden. Steeping cuttings from soft plant parts in water for a few weeks will produce a liquid feed which can then be diluted and applied to plants just like a shop-bought feed. Comfrey, bracken, clover, groundsel, nettles, borage, chicory and strawberries are particularly good plants for making liquid feed.

There are many ways to use woody cuttings from your garden, though you should ensure that no diseased materials are re-used:

• To create supports for perennials or climbers.
• As features within the garden, large and interestingly shaped pieces of wood are particularly good for this as they look attractive with plants growing over them or can be useful as low seats.
• For garden edging or raised beds – either by lying long pieces lengthways supported by stakes on either side, by weaving more pliable stems through upright stakes, by sticking smaller pieces upright into the ground to form an informal edge or by sticking both ends of pliable stems into the soil to create a ‘hoop’ effect.
• If you have an open fire or wood burner then cuttings can provide winter fuel, including smaller pieces which are useful as kindling. If you don’t have a fire, bundle it up and advertise it on a recycling website, such as Freecycle, Freesharing, Freegle (UK) and Any Good To You (UK). Remember that wood should be seasoned (left to dry out for at least 6 months (softwood), up to 2 years (hardwood)) before being used on a fire and that not all wood is suitable for burning in this way.
• Chipping/shredding woody waste can give you an excellent garden mulch or additive for your compost heap. Chippers can be hired for the day, though you will still need to cut the wood down to the right size to go into the chipper. To eliminate this work you could employ a local gardening company to do the chipping for you.

For those who have an artistic bent, many garden cuttings can be used to provide home decorations. Pliable stems (willow, hazel or dogwoods are the best, but most young woody growth will work) can be used to create wreaths or similar decorations. Cuttings from hollies, conifers, willows and variegated evergreens can provide a wintery alternative to indoor flower arrangements, or be stuck into outside containers to provide a backdrop to your winter bedding display.

If you have old patio slabs or pieces of rubble to get rid of then you can usually find someone who needs them via a recycling website, such as Freecycle, Freesharing, Freegle (UK) and Any Good To You (UK).

Turf can be a real problem to get rid of as it’s so heavy. But if you have the space you can stack turf (grass side down) in a dark spot and leave it for a year or so. After this time the grass will have broken down and you’ll have a great soil improver to add onto your beds or veg patch.

Your local authority

Most local authorities offer a collection service for garden waste (though they generally won’t take large branches), which they then compost. Because they are composting on such a large scale the compost heaps reach a much higher temperature, which means that they can take most garden weeds and diseased materials – though you should check what they will and won’t accept as they won’t appreciate you putting things like Japanese Knotweed into your garden waste bin!

If you frequently have a large amount of garden waste then your council may allow you to purchase an extra bin to contain it, or use additional waste bags. If you have a ‘one off’ large load of waste then it’s worth calling your local authority as many will offer a special collection service, which can be much cheaper than hiring a skip.

The majority of local refuse disposal sites/tips will also accept garden waste, including rubble, soil and turf, which is generally sent on for composting or recycling in other ways.