Puzzles and prizes

Test your gardening knowledge with our brain teasers this month!

Win a Saratoga garden chair and footstool from Forest Garden worth £169.98, plus Hayloft plants and vouchers

CLUES ACROSS

1 Genus of plants of which cardunculus is the globe artichoke (6)

3 - - - - pepper, cube-shaped capsicum also known as sweet pepper (4) 7 Sweet - - - - - - -, popular bedding plant such as ‘Little Dorrit’ or ‘Snowdrift’ (7)

8 - - - lavender, common name for various species of limonium (3) 9 Heartless type of leaf cabbage often used as a fodder crop (4) 11 Summer-flowering herbaceous perennial with often sweetly scented flowers including - - - - - paniculata (5) 14 Tall perennial in the Asteraceae with golden daisy flowers (5)

15 ‘My - - - - Lady’ wallflower cottage garden mix and a 1956 musical (4) 18 Pisum sativum, legume that might be mangetout or sugar snap (4) 19 Chamaedorea - - - - - - -, potted plant known as parlour palm (7) 20 Gradual melting of garden snow and ice as warmer days arrive (4) 21 Mainly perennial genus that shares its name with Aphrodite’s lover (6)

CLUES DOWN

1 Word describing lime-rich soils (6) 2 Hollow-stemmed waterside plant of the Juncaceae – in a hurry, perhaps? (4) 4 Lisianthus or prairie gentian (7) 5 Maple - - - -, Canadian emblem used as a name for an old hosta cultivar (4) 6 Most populous Nebraskan city and small-cupped narcissus cultivar (5)

10 - - - - - - - camara – orange-flowered Jamaican mountain sage (7) 12 Blackthorn fruits (5) 13 Multi-coloured perennials that might be bearded or crested (6)

16 Black - - - -, rose fungal disease (4) 17 Turtle - - - -, common name for plants of the chelone genus (4)

DECEMBER CROSSWORD SOLUTION

Across: 1 Cone, 3 Alpine, 7 Allseed, 8 Tulip, 9 Cigar, 11 Frame, 13 Torch, 15 Campion, 16 Smilax, 17 Baby. Down: 1 Comet,

2 Nigella, 4 Lilac, 5 Elder, 6 Tamp,

10 Gerbera, 11 Ficus, 12 Erica, 13 Tine, 14 Holly. February solutions in our April issue

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS!

December crossword: Ken Wight, Bedford, won an EGO Power+ leaf blower December wordsearch: Angela Cooke, Leeds, won two amaryllis and a £20 Hayloft voucher Christmas quiz: Veronica Dixon, Mablethorpe, won a gardening hamper