A helping hand to garden wildlife In the wake of one of the hottest and driest summers on record the Royal Horticultural Society is appealing to gardeners to lend a helping hand to garden wildlife. View more Store tomatoes for your winter supply It’s been an amazingly good tomato year what with the heat and sunshine for weeks on end – so if you’ve eaten your fill of fresh tomatoes but still have a massive glut left over, now is the time to squirrel your surplus away for winter supplies. View more Plant of the Week: Gentian The intense azure colouring of their flowers turns heads wherever they’re planted, making these tiny plants real show-stoppers in the garden. View more Harvest fresh, home-grown spuds! Although in the middle of summer the last thing you’ll be thinking about is Christmas, it’s worth tearing yourself away from the garden just for a second to do a little advance festive planning. View more National Allotment Week 2018 Get to know more about allotment life by joining in with some of the many events around the country for National Allotments Week next week! View more Plant of the Week: Aloe Vera Pop this handsome succulent onto a sunny windowsill indoors for your own home-grown first-aid kit! View more Midsummer Houseplants respond well to a little extra care in midsummer, getting a new lease of life so they finish the summer at the peak of health and looking at their very best. View more Herb harvesting time! Harvest herbs regularly at this time of year to enjoy them at their very best, taking care to pick at the right time of day to make sure they’re packed full of fragrance and flavour. View more Lost treasures have been exposed as a result of last heatwave The ghostly shadows of long-lost gardens have emerged in the wake of this summer’s heatwave after browning grass revealed the foundations under lawns. View more What to do in the garden in August? Now that August has arrived, the gardening to-do list might have become a little shorter, but there are still plenty of jobs to get on with this month! View more Plant of the Week: Basil Basil is among the most popular herbs in Mediterranean cooking – you’ll find it chopped into mozzarella and tomato salads, shredded onto pizzas or simply torn up and tossed raw among salad ingredients for a lift of rich, tangy flavour. View more Hosepipe ban This year has seen the longest heatwave in more than 40 years, with weather watchers recording the fourth hottest and driest June since 1910. Most of the country now experiencing soil moisture levels much lower than normal for this time of year. View more