Fortune favours the brave!

Last year I bought a 10.5cm pot of miniature red roses from Aldi for £1.99. I found that they were in fact regular roses treated with growth regulator to keep them small and would become full-size within 12 months. I carefully split and repotted them to give me four individual plants. Now, 12 months later, they are 2½ft tall and full of buds and blooms , each in a 10L pot. When they were on sale again this summer, I bought the white and yellow plants. So for less than £6 I should have 12 beautiful roses! Doreen Weaver, by email

My ferns were looking tired so I followed GA’s advice and gave them a tough spring prune then treated them with seaweed feed and plenty of organic compost. This summer they’re looking fabulous.

David Collins, by email

Fed up with being attacked by my orchid cactus in my small conservatory, I put on gauntlets and goggles and a mask (to muffle my curses) and hung it on the edge of the carport last autumn , with not much hope that it would survive the winter. However, it certainly seems to like it here! Alison Acred, Fleet

Our garden had not been tended for nearly 40 years and we cleared away all the weeds and scrub and created a lawn with lots of shrubs and flowering plants with ground-cover beneath. We now share it with lots of garden birds and a pair of seagulls, Bill and Ben, who call in daily for scraps, together with squirrels, hedgehogs and a fox who comes each night for a dog meat supper. Taking on such a wilderness was a bold step but it has been such a joy and we love keeping busy caring for the wildlife even now that my husband Davie is 86 and I am 76. Sylvia Lindsay, by email