Gardening and Climate News from April 2007
Update: A Perfect Garden
The Telegraph's five-part series shows how you can transform your garden over Easter. Go on, says Helen Yemm, get digging...
www.telegraph.co.uk
Part 1: Perfect lawns John Cushnie on how to cultivate, grow and maintain a magnificent patch of grass. Part 2: Perfect flowers Mary Keen selects four types of starter borders to choose from. Part 3: Perfect vegetables Sarah Raven on how to create a fabulous vegetable garden. Part 4: Perfect lifestyle how you can transform your garden over Easter, Diana McAdam looks at lifestyle Part 5: Perfect low maintenancehow you can transform your garden over Easter, Stephen Lacey looks at low maintenance gardens
Update: Peck of the bunch 06/04/2007
Jean Vernon chooses the best compact chicken runs
Whether or not you are new to hen-keeping, there are several reasons why it is a good idea to invest in a top-notch, specially designed self-contained des res for your hens.
It is very possible that you would prefer them not to scratch about in the garden. A flock of hens scratching in the borders can quickly reduce plants to shreds and you can guarantee that, however much nice grass there is for them to forage, they will find a way to reach your vegetable beds and munch through all the salad before you catch them.
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Update: The ultimate green gardening guide - Published: 07 April 2007 (www.independent.co.uk/)
As environmental awareness goes, it would be reasonable to think that gardeners are well placed to make a positive contribution to local and global welfare. Many don't have to be persuaded to carry out the basics - recycling, creating habitats for wildlife, or planting trees - because it's in their blood. But the focus of awareness has widened recently to take into account such things as the materials we use to build and plant, the water we use to irrigate and the energy consumed for machinery, heating and transportation
Far from wanting to be put off one of the great pleasures in life, gardeners are now facing up to the fact that even the simple act of maintaining our gardens can have environmental implications. The bottom line for most people when making a garden is convenience and how much it is going to cost.
Update: Triple treat for Chelsea 13/04/2007
Mary Keen talks to the creators of this year's Daily Telegraph garden
"Eccentricity and ego have no place in our Chelsea garden," Gabriella Pape says firmly. She and Isabelle van Groeningen, who run the garden design business Land Art, are the designers of this year's Telegraph garden at the show in May.
Update: New bulbs in town 13/04/2007
Tulips just keep getting more exotic. Sarah Raven picks the best recent varieties
I've just been to Holland to visit bulb breeders, who develop the new varieties of tulips that will be filling our gardens in a few years' time. Most of the Dutch bulb fields you pass are monochromatic blocks of colour, tens of thousands of a single variety.
