Revealed: Trade secrets of the beauty experts that’ll transform how YOU look

GET GARDEN SAVVY

BE A SOIL SLEUTH

YOU need to build a beautiful garden from the ground up. Knowing what type of soil you have will tell you what will grow well, what won’t and what you need to add to make everything bloom.

Order a Royal Horticultural Society soil analysis kit for £30 (£25 for RHS members) from rhs.org.

uk. Just post your samples off in the packs provided and its experts will send you back detailed results and bespoke advice.

NAME THAT TUNE

SPRING is in the air and the birds are singing — but which ones? Record the birdsong in your garden on the Bird Song ID app (from £2.99 for android), and it will sift through 36 British species to tell you who is tweeting.

SAVE YOUR BACK

NATIONAL gardening charity Thrive’s website carryongardening.org.uk has lots of advice and a handy equipment finder so you can match the right tools to tasks — and protect your back and knees.

TURN PLANT PRO

BEFORE you pull up a gem thinking it’s a weed, take a picture of the mystery plant on your phone or tablet, and upload it to the free Plantnet app which will identify it against its database of 6,000 plant species. It’s handy for discovering the names of covetable plants in friend’s gardens, too!