Tools & Equipment

Win one of ten tubes of GroChar Soil Improver

Have you heard about GroChar? It’s a form of biochar that helps the environment in two ways – it locks away carbon dioxide normally released by decomposing plant matter, and when added to soils it acts as an effective improver. Here's your chance to win a tube to try it for yourself.

Biochar is a form of charcoal that is made specifically for use as a soil improver. Carbon Gold’s GroChar is a special recipe that helps biochar work quickly and effectively to stabilise nutrients in your soil – and improve plant health. Enter our competition for your chance to try GroChar for yourself.

Never mind the weather

It may be a little chilly out there but given a sunny day, there's still reason enough to get outside. Here's a few items to help keep you warm once you are out and about.

This wood-fired ‘Dutchtub’ by Welvetree can be used anywhere you have access to water. In a range of colours, £4,500. Accompanying ashtray and chimney, priced £135 and £595 respectively, all available from bigfire, tel 01395 275300

Reader offer: 10% off 'must-have' plants at the Beth Chatto Nursery

The Beth Chatto Nursery is offering a 10% discount on plants, including a selection of those mentioned in Piet Oudolf's 100 must-have plants featured in the February 2013 issue.

Flowering vegetables

The kitchen garden is back, and with it the complete experience of sowing, growing and eating. Yet vegetables can be so much more than just food; they can improve ecology, encourage birds and bees, offer colour and seeds. You could even take it one step further and bring flowers from the vegetable plot inside.

All vegetables produce flowers, even though most people with a vegetable garden have never seen them. When we look at vegetables as flowering plants, there are roughly two types. Most vegetables produce flowers in order to form an edible product. Peas, beans and pumpkins are examples. So when you cut these flowers, you don’t get the food.

What will our gardens look like in 2013?

We asked ten of the top garden designers to give us their thoughts on what the latest garden trends will be in the year ahead.

With sustainability in our gardens now a given, and with continued economic concerns, what might our gardens look like in the coming year?

25 of the best English gardens to visit

Garden designer and historian Penelope Hobhouse chooses 25 of her favourite gardens to visit throughout England.

Festive Foraging

Your garden can help provide a very merry Christmas, if you know what you’re looking for and how to use it. Here's some stylish decoration suggestions to make yourself from designer Kristy Ramage.

GARDEN BAUBLES
I collect things from the garden all the time. Baskets and bowls of seed-heads, moss and wind-fall crab apples make their way on to window sills and side tables in all seasons. For Christmas it feels well worth putting in a little extra effort to make the garden finds look more special. These baubles are all really simple to make - but are very effective hanging from a mantelpiece or shelf.