Garden for long enough and you inevitably forget how much you’ve learned along the way. But if I could step back in time and whisper some words of advice and encouragement to my much-younger self, then this is what I’d say.“The right plant in the right place” is one of the unbreakable rules of good gardening. Stick a sun-loving species that needs a friable, free-draining soil into a damp bed in shade, for example, and it will almost certainly die.
You’ll end up feeling a sort of shamefaced respect for it, instead of delivering the coup de grace by evicting it to the compost heap. But, just to confound you, every once in a while there will be plants that mysteriously defy this cardinal rule. A frost-tender shrub that survives an icy winter outdoors, for example. A shade-loving fern that flourishes in full sun. An annual that somehow decides it’s perennial. This is mother nature gently tapping you on the shoulder to remind you who’s boss.
If you’re sowing seed of annuals under cover at this time of year for planting out into the garden, bear in mind that there are different types of annuals. Those known as hardy annuals – some examples include sweet pea, calendula, nigella, broad beans, beetroot, carrots and parsnips – will tolerate surprisingly cool temperatures.