Mint, a most useful herb and amongst our favourites is so easy to grow and use that it makes all the effort a real pleasure! Made a Mint Julep recently? Had some mint sauce with your roast lamb? Enjoyed a cup of refreshing Peppermint tea? It's all calming and healthy; and it adds fragrance too.

Are Gardeners trend setters and why? It seems the more things change the more they stay the same … so how are our LIFESTYLE and SPIRITUAL demands currently affecting our choices when it comes to our private garden spaces? Have things really changed or is it because we are becoming more discerning?

Some spices suit containers better than others...and ANISEED is one of them. Instead of ‘fresh off the supermarket shelf' spice, grow your own this time! Want to ‘stir up some bodily lust?’ Ward off the evil eye? Flavour a medicine? Catch mice? Keep away a nightmare? Cure hiccups? grow some Anise!

What is the best thing for you about growing your own flowers and vegetable and herbs and other edibles? The journey is the thing but so is the destination – and often when we reach where we are going to, we neglect to do what it is we came to do! The best time to harvest is not always apparent!

Your flowers, containers, plants and edibles offer so much in your container garden – why not enhance their environment with other decoratives like tuned wind chimes or music or yard art or statuary? Maybe this will get your creativity going - once you start, so does the fun and you may need brakes!

Make good use of your Nasturtium green seeds and pickle them for the joy of using your own home-grown produce. Making these ‘poor-man’s-capers’ makes sense too. So easy to grow, so easy to harvest, so easy to use, they will make a good hostess gift too and it’s your container garden in action!

Seeds of success in our lives depend on savvy habits and so too with gardening – so do you save seeds from season to season or do you go for seedlings? Saving seeds saves your favourites and could be the start of a heritage collection; it's thrifty gardening too so start seeding!

Not home much? Travel a lot? Work odd hours and weekends away? Treasure your black thumb but need something to grow? If you answered yes for just one of these questions then maybe a cactus container garden would suit you. It is easy enough to set up and simple enough to maintain. Waterwise too!

Herbs are strong and fragrant growers in gardens, window boxes and containers, and more often than not able to withstand pest attacks. So what can you do if your herbs are taking strain? We use Basil specifically here but the advice stretches to lots else and other edibles. See what you think!

Have you got a beautiful view from your home you would like to enhance somehow with a window box that softens the outlook and brings your garden inside? Not enough time to garden but do want something inviting to look at without losing your sense of height? Here are some designer ideas for you!