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

REAL readers' gardens!

This is the month of horticultural happiness, and with everything looking fresh, green and lush, even the burgeoning weeds become – briefly – delightful additions to the garden. Selfheal sprouts gaily

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

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

THIS WEEK’S COLUMNIST Dame Mary Berry