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!

Apply these simple principles to your plot for dazzling results!

This month, Lalage reflects on how she was a little too hasty in planting out pea seedlings, contemplates the benefits of companion planting and sets about bringing order and tidiness to her vegetable beds

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

There are some vegetables that thrive in the cold, but unless you aspire to self-sufficiency Tom Coward recommends caution when sowing very early in the year. “It’s a mistake, although we always do it