Most ferns need good light, but not direct sunlight, They prefer indirect or filtered light.

Indoors they should be kept out of direct sunlight.

On the other hand very dense shade is not suitable either. Under these conditions the fronds grow long and spindly.

They need constant moisture, but most will not tolerate perpetual wetness.

The soil should be well-drained and thickly mulched with organic matter such as old manure, leaves or grass clippings.

An ideal soil for ferns consists of a mixture of leaf mould, sand and loam.

Ferns are dependent on water to complete their life cycle. They produce tiny spores on the back of their fronds.

These are ejected from the parent plant by a complex mechanism and float around until finally settling on a favorable site. The average fern produces hundreds of thousands of spores.

Ferns are the veterans of the plant kingdom and long before human beings appeared, vast forests of ferns covered the Earth.

Today all that remains are deposits of coal, formed by the decaying plants. There are thousands of species descended from these prehistoric ferns and today they can be found the world over, from polar regions to the equator.

Spring or autumn are the best times to plant or move ferns.

Many valuable nutrients in compost are soluble in water and since plants drink their food, watering them with compost tea is an effective and fast-acting way to feed them.

Many problem plants and trees can be nursed back to health by treating them with this liquid.

You can use it on bare spots on your lawn and on garden plants that have been transplanted.

It’s also a good fertiliser for house plants and in greenhouses.

To make it, half-fill a bucket with compost and top it up with water.

Stir several times over a few days and pour off the resulting tea. Dilute it before applying to plants. Use the same compost several times, then dig the dregs into the garden.

When winter coughs and colds strike nowadays we look to the chemist’s shop to provide relief, but in earlier times humans turned to plants for their healing and soothing properties.

Mallows, in particular the marsh mallow, have always been known for their medicinal properties.

Boiled in wine or milk, the roots of marsh mallow produced a syrup which was a popular remedy for coughs, bronchitis and whooping cough.

Menthol, a common constituent of modern cough medicines is distilled from the herb peppermint.

Pansies are wonderful plants, giving us colour in the garden in winter and spring.

They should be planted in summer and autumn. In places where there are not heavy frosts they will flower all winter long.

They like a rich, moist soil with well-rotted manure or compost. Make sure fresh manure doesn’t come into contact with the roots.

They are heavy feeders with roots close to the surface and a good thick mulch will help them thrive.

They are best raised from seed each year because old plants don’t produce as many flowers.

Try inter-planting them with tulips for a beautiful effect.

You can easily produce new pansy plants by cuttings taken from side shoots in late summer.

Pansies look most effective when grown in a mass, rather than in a row along a border. They are set off perfectly by a band of violas, their close relative, two or three rows deep, around the outside.