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Guests at the Chelsea Flower Show Ringo Starr with wife Barbara Bach

A rock garden with a difference as stars dig in

ROCK and roll royalty turned up yesterday to support charity gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show.

Sizzling hot azaleas can set your garden aflame

There are few garden flowers that sizzle in hot colours like azaleas. Part of the spectacular rhododendron family, these plants differ in that they lose their leaves in winter and are generally known as deciduous azaleas.

Ornamental onions the perfect ingredient

THE purple globes of alliums are very distinctive in gardens in May and June. The perfect globe shape is not common, but very eye-catching, and the purple colour is striking. Yet alliums are relatively new in gardens, appearing for not much more than a decade now to any great extent.

Aim for amazing azaleas

By Marie Staunton

Carefully prepared acid soil -- and hard work -- is the key to growing beautiful flowering shrubs, says Marie Staunton

Enjoying home-grown food makes you extremely proud

Where do you GIY?

Flowers trumpet rich rhododendron scent

THE fragrant rhododendron is one of the most sweetly scented plants at this time of year, or any other time. Many of the rhododendrons grown in gardens have no scent, although some have, but none is as richly perfumed as the fragrant rhododendrons, the best known of which is Rhododendron 'Fragrantissimum'.

Forest Flame (Pieris). Photo: Getty Images

Fanning red flames to brighten up late spring

Pieris was not a very well-known plant in gardens until the variety 'Forest Flame' came along 30 years ago. It was brighter than its predecessors, a brilliant shade of red and hardier than most. The red shoots slowly turn pink and then cream before finally turning green, about three months of good colour display.

How to decorate your own 'outside room'

As the weather improves, we now start to look at our gardens in a different way. There's more colour to be seen and we're able to start thinking about how the garden will look with summer being only around the corner. A little effort and work put into your garden now will pay dividends.

Clean sweep for broom in early colour stakes

Broom is a native plant that flowers in spring a few weeks after the gorse sets the countryside ablaze with its warm yellow flowers. The colour of broom is yellow too but a brighter, lighter shade of yellow, and it is just beginning to flower these days.

Mild weather ushers in elegant clematis

Although clematis is more associated with summer, there are some very beautiful kinds for spring flowering and they are generally easy to grow. These are in flower now, a little earlier than usual due to the mild spring weather.

Inside Home & Garden

The flower behind the throne

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Attenborough's plants in 3D

Filmed over the course of a year at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, which houses some 90% of all known plant species in one form or another, Kingdom of Plants 3D provides a fascinating new look at plant life using stunning 3D time-lapse filming techniques.

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Robbie excited to be a dad

The Angels singer has been training with stars including Olly Murs and Aston Merrygold and Marvin Humes from JLS ahead of Soccer Aid 2012 on Sunday, a celebrity charity football match in aid of Unicef.Williams said of his impending fatherhood: "I have been genuinely overjoyed and terrified and then going back between the two on a daily basis and today I'm overjoyed and I can't wait.

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Carey Mulligan's custom-made Prada Met Ball dress sells for $2,950

As co-host of the 2012 Met Ball to mark the opening of the Costume Institute of New York's Prada and Schiaparelli exhibition, British actress Carey Mulligan was guaranteed a knockout gown to wear, and her sequin bedecked Prada dress did not disappoint.