Bill Gates

Adding surface trims is one way of keeping pot plants tidy and it adds an extra decorative element, giving you more opportunities to create a stylish planting. However, its real importance is in the practical benefits it brings by preserving moisture in the potting mixture, and helping to keep it warm. It also helps keep the collars of plants dry.

you have to take on board the safety issues involved in using fire. A naked flame can easily singe plant leaves, so take care not to place the candle too close to the plant. Also, do not use a candle in a situation where paper, fabric, or any other flammable material could easily catch fire, and make sure there is someone

Take the stems of the climber and begin to coil them as horizontally as possible around the support, tying them where necessary. I find the most effective fixing method is green gardening.

My daughter is shortly to depart for university and wants some plants for her room. What would look good, be interesting and difficult to kill'Had you asked me this about zo years ago I would probably have said a yucca.

We have an orchard that we would like to make more ornamental and less utilitarian. Can you suggest how we could do this'

The prevailing winds over most of Britain are the south-westerlies, but make sure that this is the case for your garden and then start planning how and where you are going to put up your shelter belts.

I belong to a local flower club and would like to grow house plants whose leaves I can use for my exotic flower arrangements. What would you suggest, and how can I succeed.

Expanded polystyrene balls or flakes provide a very lightweight inert material which can be addedto soils or composts as a physical conditioner. It is non-porous and so reduces the water-holding capacity of the growing medium while increasing its aeration, thus making it less liable to water-logging when overwatered.

The soil has a narrow working range making it very difficult to be timely with cultivation. After wetting the soil is plastic and needs to dry considerably before becoming friable (workable) and of load-bearing strength. However, the soil rapidly passes through this stage in driei weather to become too hard to cultivate.

In addition to insects and mites, the phylum Arthropoda contains three horticulturally relevant classes, the Crustacea (woodlice), Symphyla (symphilids), and Diplopoda (millipedes). Woodlouse (Armadillidium nasutum), a relative of the marine crabs and lobsters, has adapted for terrestrial life, but still requires damp conditions to survive. In damp soils it may number over a million per hectare, and greatly helps the breakdown of plant debris, as do earthworms. In greenhouses, where plants.