AMELIA arrives home from her half-day at work. She has the week’s shopping and quickly squirrels everything away, leaving just her children’s magazines on the kitchen table. Seeing she only has three-

I like unusual words and there are a couple that seem appropriate for this time of year. March, we know, is a fickle beast, where the weather can flicker from T-shirt to thermals in the course of a da

REAL readers' gardens! Pruning roses A plant-packed suburban ...

As the long nights shorten, Mounton House garden quietly emerges from winter with delicate sprinklings of white narcissi, Scilla siberica and crocuses through the lawns. Daphnes fill the air with frag

To hide my new garden’s nakedness, I planted trees. Damson and mirabelle plum, ‘Discovery’ and reinette apples, two pears, a quince and a ‘Nottingham’ medlar. There was a purple-leaved filbert, a ‘Che

I LIFT my head to the weak sun and give thanks for having survived another winter. It’s good to see the lane is passable, even if there are ruts and puddles. However, I can still see the bones of icy,