Be honest: are you taking care of plants in your garden that you don’t actually like? Maybe it’s something your aunt gave to you, or your mother-in-law really likes it, or it was there when you moved in? If you are as obsessed with plants as I am, and study all corners of your garden to figure out where you can shoehorn in more, you need to decide whether these are good enough reasons to look after something that smells bad, bullies its neighbours, or simply leaves you cold.

Here’s a quick list of plants that have felt the hard edge of my spade this year:

French lavender: the showy purple wings aren’t enough to make me hold onto a plant which doesn’t have that pure lavender scent. By contrast, the English Lavender Lavandula angustifolia ‘Munstead’ has a heart-stoppingly beautiful fragrance, even before the flowers come out.

Hardy geraniums: I love the geranium “Johnson’s blue”, but earlier this year I pulled out a huge clump of a different hardy geranium I’d been given which had the most awful resinous scent. What a great feeling — and I immediately recognised how I could better use the space it had been sprawling across.

Rosa Tess of the Urbervilles: the first time I saw the David Austin roses in their free catalogue I couldn’t believe that something could be so beautiful. So many of his varieties have layer upon layer of petals, and Tess is one of the most ravishing to look at. But it has that myrrh scent which to me recalls medicinal ointment. No thanks.

Neglected fern: I actually really like this little fern but it had been lost beneath an overgrown Garrya elliptica, which I’ve steadily been pruning back to the wall over the last few years. Both plants were in situ when I moved in, and I think that stopped me interfering with them too much. But the Garrya had to be pulled right back this year, as I look for more sunny places to grow vegetables (near the Garrya I’ll be growing the dwarf French bean, Masterpiece). I yanked out the fern with a bit of root ball and potted it up, and I’m happy and a bit surprised to see it hasn’t died. I’ll find it a nice home elsewhere in the garden.

Eucalyptus gunnii: my sister sent me a tree in a box when we first moved into this house, but even with yearly coppicing this plant just didn’t fit into our garden. I have composted it (with my sister’s blessing).

If your garden is a blank canvas, you may be thinking harder about how to fill it up than what to purge, but promise yourself now that you will only grow what you like. It’s a great time of year to visit gardens, garden centres or public parks to see what appeals to you. Choose wisely, and plant your kind of plants. You won’t regret it.

Is there anything you feel you can’t get rid of in your garden? I’d like to hear about it.

If you hunger for good gardening podcasts as much as I do, you know they’re hard to find. Here’s my list of favourites, from the unmissable at number one to the merely OK at number eight. I’ve given the web address of the feed; I hope this will let you track down the show and subscribe to it with whatever podcast tool you use. I use Google Listen on an Android phone, and I’ve created a folder in Google Reader called “Listen Subscriptions” that lets me add any new podcast if I know its Web address.

I know that all sounds a bit technical. If you have any questions, let me know, and I’ll try to help you.

1. Gardeners’ Corner with Cherrie McIlwaine
   Feed URL: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/northernireland/garden/rss.xml
   My all-time favourite. Host Cherrie is a true radio talent, painting evocative pictures of the gardens she visits, making everything sound magical and intriguing. It’s the one podcast I really miss if it’s not available immediately after its usual Saturday recording date. The show, broadcast by BBC Radio Ulster in Northern Ireland, has also hit on the perfect mix of phone-ins, visits to stunning gardens, chats with experts, road shows, and on-site help with listeners’ gardens. About 22 minutes per episode.
2. The Greendays Gardening Panel with Steve Scher
   Feed url: http://www.kuow.org/rss.php?program=garden
   KUOW radio in Seattle has put together an excellent Tuesday gardening panel which takes questions by telephone and from its Facebook page, hosted by Steve Scher with advice from Willie Galloway (perky veg expert), Greg Rabourn (conservationist and tree guy) and Marty Wingate (the one who uses Latin plant names). I love their no-nonsense approach and the satisfying 50-minute format, and their knowledge about what works in the Pacific Northwest and their willingness to share it is evident. I wish they’d use more Latin names; I once spent a half an hour googling for the ground cover plant “kinnickkinnick” (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi).
3. Gardening with Tim and Joe – Tim Crowther and Joe Maiden
   Feed URL: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/leeds/gwtj/rss.xml
   This folksy advice show from BBC Radio Leeds is notable for its insights on growing fruit and vegetables, as well as routine care of garden plants like roses, chrysanthemums and more. I like the “back to basics” feature, and gardener Joe Maiden’s decades of experience shine through, although I wish he wouldn’t call every plant of the week “absolutely fantastic”. Short and sweet, just 12 minutes per episode.
4. A Way To Garden with Margaret Roach
   Feed URL: http://am1020whdd.com/rss/individual.php?id=119&title=A%20WAY%20TO%20GARDEN%20WITH%20MARGARET%20ROACH
   This US gardening luminary writes the “A Way to Garden” blog and has just published a new book, “And I shall have some peace there,” about the New York garden she commuted to for two decades and now lives in permanently. Host Jill could do with sounding more in charge, but I like Margaret’s insights on seed sowing, managing a mature garden, and why going organic is worth it. About 20 minutes per episode.
5. Gardeners’ Question Time with Eric Robson or Peter Gibbs
   Feed URL: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/gqt/rss.xml
   This weekly BBC radio broadcast is a must-listen for the range of unrehearsed questions the experts can answer, and although I like Peter Gibbs, I wince at episodes hosted by Eric Robson, who manages to be jolly and disdainful in the same breath. The conflicting and/or bad advice given by the expert panel can become wearing (why did they just advise listeners not to bother doing a big tidy up of last season’s fallen rose leaves? David Austin experts told me the February clean-up is a golden rule for preventing ills like blackspot, and I believe them.) I do appreciate many of the insights from panellists like Bob Flowerdew and pest expert Pippa Greenwood, despite her recent broad slur against gardening blogs. About 50 minutes per episode.
6. HearSay with Cathy Lewis and Jim Orband
   Feed URL: http://www.whro.org/home/html/podcasts/hearsay/podcast.xml
   This podcast from Virginia would be much higher up the list if it were more frequent, but Jim Orband only joins Cathy once a month, and their chat doesn’t have its own feed, so you need to keep an eye on the episodes and download the ones with Jim. He takes phone-in questions from listeners, and his willingness to share knowledge (and gardeners’ hunger to learn) is wonderful to behold — listen and marvel as he gives out his e-mail address for people to send in extra questions. I do like the banter between Cathy and Jim; she’s a truly likable host.
7. North Country Public Radio – Cooperative Extension horticulturist Amy Ivy talks to Todd Moe
   Feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TopStoriesFromNCPR
   Amy’s interviews with Todd are too new to me to rank higher on the list, and like the Cathy Lewis podcast, this is another one that doesn’t break out its gardening into a separate feed. But I’m now watching out every Monday for Amy’s segment, which gives practical, seasonal advice I appreciate. About 10 minutes per show.
8. Dean of Green
   Feed URL: http://www.wglt.org/podcasts/Dean_of_Green.xml
   Sultry-voiced Laura Kennedy speaks to Don Schmidt of the Illinois State University School of Biological Sciences. Laura’s incessant station identification (WGLT) is irritating, but Don Schmidt is incredibly knowledgeable and his enthusiasm is infectious. I’ve picked up a few useful tips on everything from moving peonies to the biological inner workings of plants. Super short, only about seven minutes per episode. Don takes questions from anyone, anywhere, just submit yours online at — yes, you guessed it — WGLT.org.

Attention broadcasters and bloggers – we want more, quality gardening podcasts. Why has the Scotland’s Gardens podcast has gone off air? And someone tell me why the otherwise useful and veg-centric UK online gardening community GardenersClick.com has made its GC podcast unsubscribable-to. (You can only listen to it within the walled garden of GardenersClick. Must do better, GardenersClick.) There must be hundreds of thousands of gardeners out there who, like me, would love to listen more and learn more, and would certainly be disposed to remember the names of sponsors who back such podcasts.

Do you know any other good gardening podcasts I could listen to? Do tell.

Do you have a place in your garden, or your allotment, that feels most like your sanctuary? One of the smallest corners in my small garden is shaping up to be sanctuary for me. Yes, I can hear the teenagers at the market cross just beyond my wall doing their Saturday night shrieking from time to time. But on my side of the wall — an ancient structure maybe 10 feet high, so reassuringly solid — a tiny seating area and a few plants tolerant of the basement garden-like conditions help make this a place of private perfection, or as near as makes no difference.

When I began the garden seven years ago, I remember I tried to fashion this as my Boston corner. I put in Virginia creeper for the flaming autumn colour of the New England sugar maples, and potted rhododendrons to remind me of those whose leaves were my temperature gauge each winter when I was growing up: as you probably know, rhodo leaves conveniently curl into cigars when temperatures hit freezing.

I bet it’s that nod to childhood, plus the protected-but-not-claustrophobic feeling of the high wall on one side, that gives this space a certain atmosphere that makes me want to come here when I have a moment. It’s also right outside my office window, and as my inexpert design tweaks over the last few years have nudged this area closer to what I want, it’s become the ideal place to rest my eyes as I try to think of the right verb for something I’m writing.

Shall I tell you what’s planted here now? Well, to start, the area is no more than 9′ x 7′ and faces south, but it only gets direct sun from around 12 to 2:30pm in summer.

• Red rose for contrast: The south facing wall is made mostly of the two French doors leading out from my office; the deeply fragrant climbing red rose from David Austin, Falstaff, is to the left of these doors on a scrolled metal trellis.



• Vine for autumn colour: The west facing wall is the tall stone one and hosts the Virginia creeper, which is making its way around the south wall to the top of the trellis.
• Rose for shade tolerance: The north facing wall is only chest high — it has cream colored harling (aka pebble dash), and it’s the retaining wall for the raised border that runs along one side of the house. That’s where I’ve trained the magnificent Old Glory rose, Gloire de Dijon, against a pretty pair of scrolled metal structures: not trellises, but narrow, window-shaped things designed to be wall planters. I know this rose’s magnificence only by reputation; it hasn’t flowered for me yet, but this year it’s looking promising. Why is it so much more rewarding to nurse something ailing and see it come back strongly? This rose is shade-tolerant but has struggled since I planted it; I cut back its weak growth in May and the regrowth has been vigorous.
• Rhododendron for nostalgia: The east facing wall is three full-length windows which look into the house. By these windows the entrance to a gravel path, 4 feet wide, leads out of this cosy corner to run between the raised border on one side and the house on in the other. Tucked at the side of this entrance to the gravel path is a potted “Purple Splendor” rhododendron, which shares its tub with a pieris.

Late last night, despite the darkness, I couldn’t resist a sit and a think there for a half an hour, with a cup of coffee and a lantern. Because it was only yesterday evening, having moved the potted rhodo and thinned out some of the pieris’s growth to make it fit that entrance, that I felt I’d struck on the right combination of elements for this space. My mum and I had tea in this corner when she was visiting; I wish she could sit there with me now.

Have you heard Carol Klein (a UK television gardener and owner of Glebe Cottage Plants, if you don’t know her) speak of the flowers that remind her of her own late mother, an avid gardener in her own right who sadly suffered from depression? Carol speaks of how the simple harebell means more to her than almost any other plant, because of the connection it gives her to her mother. My mother lives 3,000 miles away; my father passed away 10 years ago. Is it memories of my home with them, and of the childhood that with every passing year becomes more rose-tinted, that has made this corner my sanctuary?

Do you have a place or ritual that’s most special in your garden?

Top of my list for 2010 gardening resolutions is to grow vegetables, and my husband this week helpfully put together the raised bed and filled it with soil, compost and manure. However — this is rose pruning time, and I’ve just spent two hours out there clipping and cleaning up old foliage from the roses, giving no headspace whatsoever to my vegetable project. I hope my Eatin’ Project endeavour isn’t doomed!

My cos lettuce seedlings are ready to go, my stumpy little Parmex carrots are waiting to be planted, and parsnip seeds could get into some toilet roll holders tonight if the kids get to bed early. I have heard that neither carrots nor parsnips, as root vegetables, will be happy if transplanted, but since the Parmex are ball-shaped, I may risk them in modules and keep the toilet rolls for the ‘nips.

And so I return to the roses. The Rose de Rescht hedge I planted two years ago is in places well over three feet tall, and I cut the whole thing straight across with shears today, saving a few choice offcuts to put into the ground as hardwood cuttings. (I look for a good, thick, straight piece of wood, about 9 inches long. At the bottom, I cut straight through the middle of a growth bud — or a swollen area that should be a growth bud; at the top I cut just above a growth bud. As long as they go into a lightly shaded bit of ground that will get moisture and dappled sun for the next year, the cuttings will be very happy and may even produce flowers this summer).

But it’s the climbers I most look forward to pruning. I have an Etoile de Holland and a David Austin climbing James Galway, and both are performing so brilliantly for me in June and September, with James Galway flowering right through into November. Both of these roses let me train their long, long arms horizontally and they produce flowers all along their horizontal length, as long as I clip side shoots back to two or three buds in February.

Somebody please tell me I’m going to get similar satisfaction from my vegetables. The raised bed is in a good, sunny position near a few of my favourite roses, which will hopefully will provide a background scent as I tend the vegetables. If I can just get some food out of the ground, maybe I will start to feel the love. If you’re a flower lover who’s also going edible for the first time this year, speak up.

One consolation of November is the opportunity to look at the bare root roses which become available now. Our garden already hosts an embarrassingly large number of roses wherever there’s reliable sun, and many are true survivors, offering perfect flowers through November. As I mentioned previously, these sumptuous blooms look a bit wrong in the declining autumn garden, but I’ve solved the problem by using them as a cutting patch from October onwards. These last weeks Rosa Tess of the d’Urbervilles and R. James Galway have sat merrily on my desk and in the kitchen, alongside the last of the dahlias and spice-scented pinks.

If you are planning next year’s roses, one aspect worth considering — but which marketing materials rarely describe — is how the flowers fade and die. If you want to cut roses for the house, they will start fading the moment secateurs meet stem, so it’s worth knowing which roses age gracefully and ultimately enjoy a good death. All these have earned their place in my garden but vary in their end-of-life beauty:

• Rosa James Galway: a nearly thornless climber from David Austin which for me has only the slightest scent in the garden. But in the vase, James Galway absolutely shines. It begins to give off a pleasant, old-Rose-meets-talcum-powder scent. Its baby-girl pink tones also fade to lavender, reminiscent of antique wallpaper. Best of all, even the smallest buds open, extending the vase life.
• Jude the Obscure: also from David Austin, JtO has full, heavy heads of pale yellow-pink petals with an exquisitely fruity scent. They look a bit ponderous in the vase, but a single flower perfumed my office for days. The final petals actually gave off a final, perfect spritz of scent as they fell to the desk — amazing.
• William Shakespeare 2000: I contacted David Austin to see if my experience of this rose was typical, and it seems it is. What a beauty this rose is in the garden — strongly fragrant, packed with red petals. But look away when it starts to fade. The petals tend to turn brown and cling on instead of falling peacefully one by one, so entire heads can rot on the stem. The vase life in my experience is not good.
• Tess of the d’Urbervilles: a strong climbing red also from David Austin, with such lust for life that it happily endured six months shaded by scaffolding here. The flowers are perfection in the early stages and the vase life is excellent. But to me the scent is not very pleasant, and the petals eventually reflex back to an almost-puffball shape. But great for a mixed vase where other roses provide the scent.
• Etoile de Holland: bred more than 70 years ago, EdH is famed as one of the best climbing reds. To me its scent is outrageously wonderful — a powerful, almost lemony aroma that, like Jude the Obscure, makes you want to eat the rose. The stems are short and the heads large, so arrangements need support. I put a dozen into a short, square vase topped with a plastic grid, and that worked. The flower form quickly declines from the stereotypical florist’s rosebud shape to a blown-open saucer, but together in a vase the scent of these roses is unbeatable.

Intensity and attractiveness of scent are subjective — one person’s wonderful is another person’s mediocre – but it’s easier to agree whether a fading rose is objectively beautiful or better off dead. Ask the growers you’re buying from this year what becomes of the flowers in the later stages, and inquire whether they have pictures to share. You’ll spend the next half-year looking forward to them, so it’s good to know what’s in store.