The time to sow is now | Allan Jenkins

Warmer weather, spring sunshine and gentle rain means it’s time to plant your seeds

It’s April, the time of showers and warmth, so it’s likely safe to say it’s the month to unleash your soil. Uncover cloches if you sowed hardy vegetables in March, and lift them from any over-wintered chards and kales.

Plant any potatoes you haven’t yet got in the ground and earth up any earlies already in. Go back over seed beds. We don’t divide our plot into beds except by sowing different rows in different directions: a combination of leaves, say, running one way, beets another, herbs perhaps scattered through, calendula, too, for colour and companion planting. There is no right or wrong, though best not to sow the same seed in the same place every year if you have enough space avoid it.

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How to buy a house in Scotland Nottingham Estate Agents

We asked David Corrie – head of Estate Agency at Galbraith’s Castle Douglas office – to explain the process of buying a house in Scotland to potential buyers from the rest of the UK. Scottish estate agents, particularly those in Dumfries & Galloway and the Borders, are often asked by people in England (and indeed […]

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Valley high: finding a new life in Wales

One couple has made the move from a home in Brighton and work in the London ad industry to a remote house in Powys

Several squares of paper are taped discreetly to a wall of Rob Perham and Clive Sweeting’s kitchen, spelling out the names of nearby Welsh villages phonetically. “We’re working on our pronunciation,” explains Perham. The first time he visited Wales was when he went travelling in his 20s and it was a revelation. “I remember thinking, ‘What is this place and this language?’ It was beautiful and like nothing I’d seen before.”

It was so damp in the basement that frogs were hopping around – and in the attic you could see sky through the slates

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Valley high: finding a new life in Wales

One couple has made the move from a home in Brighton and work in the London ad industry to a remote house in Powys

Several squares of paper are taped discreetly to a wall of Rob Perham and Clive Sweeting’s kitchen, spelling out the names of nearby Welsh villages phonetically. “We’re working on our pronunciation,” explains Perham. The first time he visited Wales was when he went travelling in his 20s and it was a revelation. “I remember thinking, ‘What is this place and this language?’ It was beautiful and like nothing I’d seen before.”

It was so damp in the basement that frogs were hopping around – and in the attic you could see sky through the slates

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Persimmon launches review in drive to rebuild its image

Most profitable housebuilder in UK has been beset by a pay scandal and quality complaints

The UK’s most profitable housebuilder, Persimmon, is launching an independent review of its customer care, culture and the quality of its work as it attempts to move on from an executive pay scandal and complaints over its new-build homes.

The review, to be led by an independent chair, Stephanie Barwise QC of Atkin Chambers, will look into Persimmon’s customer care approach, systems and culture, quality assurance processes, and the speed and consistency of its response to issues. It said the findings would be published by the last quarter of 2019.

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‘Strange and delicious’: a guide to pickling young petals | Alys Fowler

Douse young blossoms such as magnolia and dandelion in vinegar to make peppery preserves this spring

Having made peace with my magnolia, Magnolia x soulangeana, and accepted that the bottom of my garden will always be cast in its dappled shade, I’ve rather fallen in love with its twisted trunks and its flurry of pink blossom. As it began to unfurl, the first smudges of pink against the sky had me reaching for the vinegar.

Pickled magnolia buds and young petals are strange and delicious. Each species has a slightly different flavour, but the base notes are gingery and peppery. This quickly turns perfumed and then, if the petals are too mature, bitter. But if you get in there when the petals are young and add vinegar, everything is enhanced in the most marvellous manner.

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Gardening tips: plant some brunneras

Then try stooling your willows – and check out the RHS’s Spring Launch and Orchid show

Plant this Brunneras are brilliant spring all-rounders for shadier spots, with starry, blue flowers and heart-shaped leaves. There are many eye-catching cultivars, including the green and cream-splotched B macrophylla ‘Hadspen Cream’, silvery ‘Looking Glass’ and silver-etched ‘Jack Frost’.

Try this Stooling is a technique used to cut willows, white-stemmed bramble (Rubus cockburnianus) and dogwoods back hard in spring, to prompt the growth of young stems. Now is the time to do it: cut back all stems to just above the base with a sharp pair of secateurs or a pruning saw. Repeat every year or two.

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