Zuzana's Outbox

They won't grow at all if they don't get planted so why not just bung then in and give them a go? That's the fun of gardening.

I've no idea really, but personally I always leave spiders alone to get on with it in the hope that they'll consume some pests. At the moment in my greenhouse I've got a nice colony of baby spiders which are yellow with black tips to their tails. I'm hoping that they'll end up doing away with the aphids.

To give yourself a bit of "space" this year, why not buy a selection of hardy annual seeds, mix them up, and sow the mixture. You'll find that as long as you keep them watered to begin with, something will come up, and they will look really pretty. The other thing is that as some in the mixture peak early and die down others will be following on, so the show should last longer. I've done this myself, and the effect was stunning.

At the end of your summer you can harvest the seeds to sow again next year if you like, and then dig the ground over, clearing the weeds and getting the soil ready for a new start.

During the course of the summer you could be reading up on what does well in your area, and chatting to any of your neighbours whose gardens are good, to find out what perennial plants and shrubs do well.