Why is such a National Conifer Week necessary? A lot of customers are not very willing to buy conifers in fear of the plants getting too big. What they do not know is that conifers can function as great building blocks in every garden and have good aesthetic qualities. Furthermore, conifers are available in a great many textures, colours, shapes and sizes.

By dedicating a whole week to the conifer, the BCG wants to celebrate the uniqueness and the variety of the conifer. Apparently, not all people are convinced yet about the added value of this plant in the garden. That is why retailers should create a greater awareness about the possibilities of this wonderful plant. What better time to do this than National Conifer Week?

October Gardening Events

September Gardening Events

August Gardening Events

July Gardening Events in Ireland

You'll find chives by the generous potful on sale in our garden centre right now. Make sure you buy several, as they're one of those plants you can't have enough of as they're tremendously versatile in the garden: use them as a pretty edge for veg and flower beds, or dot them among your flowers for a sturdy green vertical accent topped with those pretty lilac-pink pompoms right through early summer.

They're also very easy to look after, growing in any free-drained soil in a sunny spot. All they need from you is a haircut in mid-summer, just after flowering, so they keep producing lots of that new tender growth that's so invaluable for the kitchen. Just take a pair of scissors and snip the whole lot off, leaves, spent flowers and all, about 5cm above soil level. Don't go lower than this or you'll cut into the growing crowns. Follow this treatment up by watering thoroughly using a liquid feed and top dressing with fresh compost to prompt them to burst into leaf again, ready for picking a few weeks later.

Balcony garden

Depending on the size of the balcony, you can have quite a few plants. Try using a balcony box, herbs and salads are a great thing to have in there, which will also help you in your kitchen. Maybe try a climber in a pot like clematis or jasmine. Taller topiary trees are also good for balconies.

Roof top garden

If you are lucky enough to have a roof garden, it will look amazing. Plants will be open to extreme weather conditions so you need to be particular about what you plant. Try an alpine roof top although you will need to protect them in the winter.

Potted plants

Potted plants can look so effective by your front door. Most people tend to go for a buxus. Why not try some gorgeous olive trees or bay trees, they will look just as nice.  

Making compost is a lot like cooking: you have to mix everything thoroughly to make sure the end product is blended to the perfect texture. All you need is a fork, a spade and some muscle power. It helps if your compost bins are side by side, as it's easiest to fork the compost straight over the side into the empty bin, mixing as you go.

Once you've transferred everything across, water thoroughly and cover with thick cardboard to keep the moisture in and the weeds out. This gets the rotting process going at full steam, with bacteria and worms relishing the damp conditions.

It's up to you how often you turn your compost, but the more often you do it, the quicker your compost will be ready. A minimum is twice, once in spring or summer and once in autumn, which gives you compost in about a year; but turn it as often as every four weeks and it takes only a matter of months to transform garden waste into black gold.
 

Growing show quality sweet peas is something of an art, but it's fun to have a go yourself at home. Give yourself a head start by choosing Spencer types such as 'Gwendoline', 'Royal Wedding' and 'Windsor', bred to produce larger, more eye-catching displays, and train them as cordons – producing magnificent flowers on long, sturdy stems, perfect for cutting.

Tying in regularly is essential for good cordon sweet peas: aim to tie stems securely to supports every 45cm or so. Then whenever side branches form, pinch them out so the plant puts all its energy into one stem. At the same time, pinch off all the curly tendrils, too. The result is much larger blooms on arrow-straight stems, perfect for the show bench.
 

Sage hails from Mexico so whichever type you grow, give it plenty of sunlight and a free-draining soil. Your reward is a generous display of flowers from midsummer until the first frosts. The hardy sages in particular are rock-solid reliable performers and a must-have for any perennial border: try violet-blue 'Caradonna' or sultry indigo blue 'Mainacht'.

Tender sages offer exquisite spires of blooms in dayglo crimson and magenta: 'Amistad' carries plumes of royal purple, while blackcurrant sage has scented leaves and the increasingly popular 'Hot Lips' has bicoloured flowers in red and white. All should survive a mild winter, but if in doubt lift in late autumn and pot up to bring under cover somewhere frost-free. Plant out again next spring and it'll bounce back good as new and give you years of dazzling colour to come.

• Watch out for frosts and keep horticultural fleece handy to throw over any plants vulnerable to damage
• Trim back climbers threatening to invade your guttering and eaves, always cutting back to a pair of buds

Ornamental garden:

• Prune forsythia as soon as flowering finishes, removing about one in five of the oldest stems
• Cut back old growth on ferns to make room for the new shoots and show them off as they unfurl
• Put up wigwams for climbers like sweetpeas and clematis, sinking four or five canes in a circle and tying together securely at the top.

Kitchen garden:

• Sow spinach seed direct into the ground, spacing the easy-to-handle seeds about 5cm apart in shallow drills.
• Inspect fruit tree branches for woolly aphid, like white fluff on the bark; blast off with a jet of water if you spot them
• Plant asparagus in trenches, making mounds in the bottom to sit the spidery crowns on before back-filling with soil.

Once you're home you can create a display all your own. Rhododendrons need acidic soil to thrive, so if yours is neutral to alkaline opt for a smaller variety and grow them in tubs of ericaceous (acidic) compost. Good choices are the early-flowering “Christmas Cheer”, which reaches about 1.2m with pink-tinged white flowers, and any of the dwarf yakushimanum hybrids: 'Koichiro Wada' is white emerging from salmon-pink buds, while 'Fantastica' is a frilly electric pink.

In gardens on acid soil, the choice is huge. 'Gomer Waterer' is a gentle lilac; 'Albert Schweitzer' is soft pink; and for real pizazz try 'Lee's Scarlet', with crimson-pink, speckled flowers. Rhododendrons are easy to care for, needing no pruning: just choose a damp spot in part shade, and keep container-grown specimens well watered using rainwater if possible. Then all you need to do is sit back and enjoy those spring fireworks.
 

Seed hunkers down to wait for better weather in chilly soil instead of germinating, putting it at risk from rotting or being eaten first. Sown in warmer conditions, though, they germinate quickly and grow away vigorously, often overtaking earlier-sown seedlings.

Every spring is different, and the date on the calendar isn't a reliable indication of the weather outside. Test soil temperature over the course of a week, though, and you'll know exactly what you're letting your seeds in for.

Soil thermometers with a long probe, available in your garden centre , are inexpensive and easy to use. Simply stick it into the ground where you want to sow seed every day, writing down the temperatures you record.

The minimum temperature for germinating the hardiest seeds, such as peas and carrots, is 7°C: once the soil registers at least this temperature for a week, you're safe to sow. Ideal temperatures vary from seed to seed: cabbages and spring onions need at least 10°C while the tender vegetables, like French beans and courgettes, require 18°C to get going. 

The best scarlet is Cornus alba 'Sibirica', but there are more subtly coloured dogwoods too: Cornus stolonifera 'Flaviramea' has lime-yellow stems while 'Midwinter Fire' is all the colours of a bonfire with stems flaring orange through yellow to red at the tips.

The best stem colour is produced by one-year-old shoots, so prune dogwoods right back to the base each spring. You'll need to be brutal – cut every stem back to about two buds from the base to leave a stubby framework.

If you don't like the look of a stump in your border you can still enjoy the effect of the one-year-old stems by pruning half the shrub every other year. This year, prune out every other stem, leaving a thinner framework of branches in place. Then next year prune those out in turn, so you get the benefit of that winter beauty without leaving a hole in your border through summer.

Sadly they're going through a tough time at the moment, with populations plummeting and some species disappearing altogether due to a combination of disease, and habitat loss. It's a cause for concern for us all – so do your bit to help them out by supplying them with a dedicated corner full of nectar-rich plants.

Aim for a good spread of nectar throughout the season, from the earliest February crocuses – the delightful purple C. tommasinianus naturalises happily in long grass – to apple blossom in late spring. Then there are summer favourites like deutzia, foxgloves, honeysuckle and thyme. Later on, grow clover, highly-scented lavender and flowers from the daisy family like rudbeckia, echinacea and asters for a garden that's buzzing with life, feeding your fuzzy friends – and, once they've visited the veg patch, you – for months.

Any kind of hedge is a wonderful asset to the garden, filtering wind to protect your crops and providing shelter for birds, beetles and frogs – your personal pest control army. However they do take up a lot of room: a mature hedge can easily reach a metre across. If you plant an edible hedge, though, you don't have to lose productive gardening space as you'll have all the benefits of a hedge but with a generous harvest to boot.

It's not difficult to find plants which give you a hedge and a harvest among the great shrub selection on sale in your garden centre. Blackthorn is laden with fat purple-black sloes in autumn to soak in gin for a Christmas treat, while elder is fast-growing and easy: make delicious cordial from the flowers or use berries in homemade wine, jellies and preserves.

Dog roses clamber through everything, providing you with health-giving hips for rosehip syrup, and snowy mespilus (Amelanchier), Cornelian cherries and even Myrobalan plums make great additions, too. Plant now and by autumn you can go hedgerow foraging right on your doorstep.

Arm yourself with a pair of sharp secateurs – you'll find professional-grade models in your garden centre. It's important to make clean cuts so the plant heals more quickly. You're aiming to build a healthy framework of shoots which will produce a good display of flowers, so start by thinning overcrowded growth to allow in light and air. It'll also give pests and diseases no place to hide and encourage strong, healthy growth from the base. While you're at it, get rid of dead or unhealthy wood, plus any shoots rubbing against each other.

Always prune to outward-facing buds, and aim for an open, evenly-spaced goblet shape. Clear up rose prunings carefully or they will ambush you later in the year with diseases like blackspot, which overwinters on infected foliage and stems. Finally mulch with well-rotted farmyard manure and look forward to a spectacular display of summer blooms.

There are plenty of varieties of fuchsia able to survive even quite a hard winter: most are related to F. magellanica, a tough shrub which is so resilient it's naturalised and now grows wild in the hedgerows of Ireland and Southwest England. Among the best you'll find at your garden centre and are the semi-double 'Margare', with a violet skirt and red sepals, 'Mrs Popple' and the compact 'Tom Thumb', just 30cm high and perfect for containers.

By now all will have died back in the winter frosts, leaving a thicket of brown stems. These do a good job of providing frost protection for the living crown of the plant through winter, but now they can be cleared away ready for spring. Snip them away right at ground level with sharp secateurs, taking care not to damage any new shoots which may be emerging. Then scatter some slow-release fertiliser, give the plant a good water and mulch well.

Once you get into composting, one bin just isn't enough: three is the ideal (one to fill, one to rot and one to use), then there's leafmould to make, and a green cone and wormery for kitchen scraps. You'll find a fantastic range of composting equipment in your garden centre, so go and have a browse.

Setting aside part of your garden as a purpose-built compost area makes it easy to screen off with trellis, and very efficient: keeping everything in a simple square means you have plenty of room for wheelbarrows and, if you pave it, it's much easier to keep clean.

Place your open bins alongside each other, as you'll be forking heavy compost from one into the next. Then put leafmould bins opposite, allowing plenty of air circulation. Wormeries need a sheltered spot – tucked between your bins is ideal – but a green cone prefers it open and sunny, so put it by the entrance where light is best. 

Chillies need a long growing season to do well, so sow them early - but they also need a nice warm temperature to get going. A heated propagator (pick one up while you're here) with the thermostat set to 20°C should do the job: after that, keep them as warm as possible to avoid checks in growth.

Grow in a greenhouse if you can, or failing that a sunny windowsill, and water only when the compost has begun to dry out. Feed with dilute liquid tomato fertiliser once flowers appear, then wait for the chillies to turn bright red (or yellow, depending on variety) to give the full heat a chance to develop.

Wayward climbers can work their way into window frames, doors, guttering and roof spaces if left to grow unchecked, and need regular cutting back to keep them neat. Creepers you can prune now include ornamental vines, wisteria, ivy, Virginia creeper, Boston ivy and climbing hydrangea. They're all vigorous growers which will happily romp up your walls, giving you fine displays of flowers and often brilliant red, orange and magenta autumn colour, too.

Start by pulling out dead or damaged branches, then climb up a ladder (get someone to hold the bottom steady) to get to those hard-to-reach areas behind guttering and fascias. It's essential to keep climbers well clear, as if they work their way behind downpipes and drains they could pull them off the wall.

Trim top growth back by about a third and tie stems back in to supports at even spacings along the wires. Finally, give the plant a mulch and water to send it into spring revived and ready to go.