When writer Sheila M Averbuch and her husband moved into their Pencaitland home in East Lothian over 20 years ago, the garden was little more than a flat upper lawn with a steep slope down to the bung

REAL readers' gardens!

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

Purple punctuates the planting: here an acer, verbena and some pinky-purple crinum, or swamp lily, stand out

Some of our best garden plants are climbers. I grow many including clematis and roses, along with annuals such as sweet peas, and they all produce masses of colour – so why would you not fill your gar

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