Orchids are shade-loving plants, and while they are growing they need the equivalent of the dappled sunlight they would receive growing in the tree canopy of their natural home. Too much light during the summer will harm the plants by turning the foliage a light green-yellow.

In more severe cases, direct sun will burn the leaves, causing black areas where the sun’s rays have destroyed the leaf cells.

Insufficient light, on the other hand, will create dark green leaves that can become over-extended and limp. The aim should be to give your orchids just enough light to produce a good mid-green, healthy foliage and pseudo bulbs that will develop flower spikes at the right time.

After flowering and before the new growth starts, Calanthe pseudobulbs can be taken out of their pot and left to dry until the new growth is seen.

Thunias are among the very few orchids that produce an autumn display when their leaves change colour before being shed. The leafless canes remain dormant for the winter.

Olearia nummularifolia always looks more like a hebe than an olearia to me, but botanists understand these things better than I do. Its rather stiffly erect branches, with their copper- green leaves, make a pleasant contrast in the borders to thalictrum or senecio.

The hybrid Profusion, purple-green in leaf with deep red blossoms, makes an ideal hedge and a perfect background to golden conifers. M. x purpurea, again with purplish-green leaves, is the most widely acclaimed of all the crabs and rightly so. Its deep rosy-crimson flowers are borne with a generosity that verges on profligacy, a virtue which makes this a singularly attractive tree. up to 25 ft. tall.

Of the crabs notable for fruit rather than flowers, none I have seen rival John Downie. Fruits are conical, large, yellow striped with carnival red and excellent for making the golden jelly so apt a marriage with a fresh-baked scone.

Mahonia lomariifolia is a very imposing species but it is only sufficiently hardy in milder districts. The deep yellow flowers are borne during winter on long racemes. The flowering crabs may not make the immediate appeal of the flowering cherry, but their acceptance of a wider range of soils maintains the balance between the two genera in the public opinion poll.

Tree Peonies are not usually considered easy plants, but I have nothing but the highest regard for the species. The young breaking leaves are delightfully tinted pink, yellow or bronze, while the flowers though small compared with the hybrids make up for lack of size by the quantity in which they are displayed.

Once specimens are established, self-sown seedlings abound in the borders around them. Grow them with the old-fashioned roses, and enjoy the old world atmosphere they bring together with the rather herby fragrance. Paeonia delavayi makes a 6-ft. high bush on wet heavy clay. The deep crimson, yellowanthered flowers, rich with the odour of cinnamon, open from June until early August, and are followed by black-seeded fruits.

Belle Etoile, with chalice-like flowers blotched purple at the base upholds the family tradition for fragrance, but reaches 8 ft. high by 6 ft. across. Enchantment, with double white flowers at 7 ft. or the Manteau d’ Hermine, dwarf and bushy at 4 ft. are both reliable. P. x purpureomaculatus is a gem, the white flowers with purple centres and sweet ,scent open earlier than any other. Sybille has a- perfume unlike the varieties mentioned, almost like that of verbena. The flowers are also stained purple. Some growers give Virginal a poor rating, but to me it is the best double-flowered variety for scent and all-round quality.

Providing a framework for the growth of the kangaroo vine to cling to also sets off the pleasant green leaves of this Australian native to best advantage.

Although a note can he taken of particular plants which are suited to particular situations, given reasonable conditions the majority of plants, other than known tender ones, will do well. This is borne out if one visits the home of the she, will have plants in ever room in the house, from the loo to the larder.

My job takes me to many such flower shows, and requires me to answer a vast number of letters on the subject of indoor plants. Some letters are amusing, others quite sad; some concern premature loss of leaves while others are from perplexed householders who have room ceilings too low for rampant monstera plants.

The entrance hall is often the most suitable place for an effective grouping of plants, or for the more mature individual plant. It is the first place that the visitor steps into and there is much to be said for the warm welcome that a cheerful entrance hall can provide. Conditions are often cooler here, though, so one must choose plants carefully to ensure that they are not too delicate and will tolerate the lower temperatures that are likely to prevail.

Having an artistic bent also helps when plants are being purchased. It often saddens me to see a purchaser select the least attractive plant from a batch on display simply -because they are unable to appreciate fully the merits of respective plants. And one cannot stress too often the importance of purchasing good quality plants at the outset; the inferior plant cannot possibly he expected to do so well when introduced to indoor conditions.

The smaller plant is the creeping fig, F. pumila which, as the common name suggests, creeps along the ground and is ideal for finishing off displays and arrangements. Really, the figs do play a most important part in our work and it is difficult to omit the tough almost to the point of being indestructible, but also because she is very useful for providing a display with a change of leaf form. Also, the greenish-yellow colouring is complementary to many of the other plants in the house plant range.

Therefore, it can be assumed that unless one is an expert with veritably ideal conditions, almost every collection of indoor plants will contain at least a few inferior ones. In order to set these off to better advantage the possibility of grouping plants together in trays or troughs may well be considered.

Potentillas are absolutely indispensable shrubs. Amongst their virtues is the ability to grow practically anywhere in any soil except dense shade or a weeping bog. I cherish the dozen or so specimens and varieties which grow here, and enjoy the flowers which open in succession from May until September. They look a little untidy after leaf fall, but this can be forgiven in a shrub so thoroughly worthwhile.

Katherine Dykes, tall at 5 ft., opens primrose-yellow flowers throughout the summer. Klondyke, a dwarf at 18 in., has sparkling golden-yellow flowers. My own favourite, Longacre, makes a neat bush 18 in. high, and has cascades of good quality yellow blossoms. Primrose Beauty has more shape than most, with grey leaves and cream flowers. Tangerine has flowers of a delicate copper orange when grown on a lime soil in light shade and is well worth a corner.

Given an acid woodland type soil they make densely foliaged evergreen shrubs which deck themselves with racemes of lily-of-the-valley flowers in early spring. In some species the flowers are insignificant compared to the brilliant colouring of the young growth. The young growths open scarlet, change to pink, then pale cream before eventually acquiring the more sombre green.

Unlike the majority of gardeners I secretly prefer the species to the heavy-flowered hybrids which lack the beauty of shape or leaf to be worthy of a second look when not in flower. This may be because the species accept my acid soil with considerably better grace than the less agreeable hybrids. A neutral or alkaline soil is the ideal medium, but they do grow in well- drained acid clay. I feed each with a mixture of 3 parts bonemeal to part of sulphate of potash, at 3 oz. per sq. yd. in February.

Paul Thirion, the last to flower with trusses of rose blossom fading to lilac, is like so many inhabitants of this globe, admirable when young but with a distinct tendency towards decrepitude with advancing years.

Syringa x persica, the Persian Lilac, is a charming slender-branched shrub with lilac flowers in May. Its variety, alba, is similar except for the white flowers.

In S. x prestoniae can be found a race of hybrids quite unlike any of the others. They are vigorous and tolerant of a vast degree of exposure and soil types. The flowers are carried in large loose panicles. Audrey, deep lilac to pale pink, has made a bush 10 ft. high in 16 years in my garden and improves each year. Royalty has violet-blue flowers and is much the same height.

This is a magnificent family which includes the lovely winter-flowering Jasminum nudiflorum. I always grow this as a wall plant and the long rambling shoots are then displayed to the proper effect.

A pergola, stump, even an old stone gate post are all methods I have adopted as support and pressed into service when no wall space could be provided. As a free-growing shrub the shoots should be hard pruned to encourage a proliferation of side branches but this to a certain extent spoils the character.

Propagation is effected by chopping away rooted pieces from the parent or if preferred by cuttings.

The white-flowering fragrant climber, is rather more demanding, though it becomes a strong vigorous climber capable of covering a ’12-ft. high wall with ease. Propagation of both species is easily effected by means of semi-hardwood cuttings in July – August.

Silver Queen has cream-margined leaves but stubbornly persists in being male. I would consider myself a fortunate being if my garden were graced with a well-grown bush of Perry’s Weeping Holly. Not only is it graceful, but the silvered leaves are bedecked in due season with beyond ordinary. Seed of the species sown in the open ground after stratification germinates readily.

Laburnum offers little choice except one outstandingly handsome tree in L. x vossii. In late May and early June the long golden racemes of flowers on a mature tree of 30 ft. are a truly lovely sight, especially when viewed from below under spring sunshine. A free-draining soil is essential for both this and the graft hybrid, laburnocytisus, or root development is poor. Propagation is by means of budding or grafting.

A sheltered corner is essential or all the beauty of leaf is lost to the tearing bruising wind. In September – October the green fades to soft yellow as the leaves fall at the onslaught of winter. I have only seen the rather peculiar green, orange-blotched flowers at rare intervals, and would rather it refrained completely.

The variety known as fastigiatum or pyramidale offers hope to the small garden for in this case all the growth is severely upright and not spreading.

The species H. paniculata grandiflora makes a very impressive sight in late summer, especially when the shoots are thinned to allow full development. The branches arch over with the weight of the panicles which open first to white then fade to pale pink. H. villosa is one of the loveliest of the late summer-flowering species with large lilac-blue inflorescences.

Both are lovely grown against a dark background of evergreens. The blue and white flowers of H. involucrata on 18-in. stems provide just the right softening influence to the lustre of the orange lily Enchantment, so I mix them up like a floral salad in a bed dominated by a sombre yew.

Some plants radiate a positive bonhomie, and in this respect St John’s Wort has few equals. In the old herbals it is credited with the ability to cure melancholy, so the prudent gardener should always have a bush on hand, at least on budget days!