If there is little colour your garden at this time of year, perhaps you should consider including some early flowering varieties in your planting scheme to enliven it at this time. The autumn leaves are now more on the ground than on the trees, the wind sends a chill through our bodies and we run both ways to take the rubbish out. But spare a thought for those who will be relying on our gardens for their winter retreat, namely hedgehogs. Steven Bradley builds a shelter for our four- legged pals. THE leaves are changing colour so it must be autumn, the time of year when conservatories come into their own and the garden looks beautiful with the reds and oranges of leaves, berries and flowers as well as some coloured evergreens.
Coastal gardeners have much to cope with.
This week I stand in defence of a plant variety that has been slated for doing everything it is supposed to, and doing it extremely well. The restoration of once-glorious Japanese gardens at Tatton Park in Cheshire and at Gunnersbury Park in London are two of many projects underway to celebrate Japan 2001, the UK s first focus on expanding links with the Land of the Rising Sun since the successful Japan Festival a decade ago. The castle itself was demolished in 1950, after running costs became prohibitive, but the magnificent Japanese landscape remained - until one fateful weekend in the 1960s when vandals all but destroyed it. The island tea-house, revolving summerhouse, shrines, boathouse, lanterns, pier and arched bridge that were once so admired were razed and have not been restored. It s still a very beautiful place but wild and informal, and I m not prepared to spend money on it unless the local authority gives permission for a caretaker s house.