‘We’re holding off taking orders until things become clearer’: some British suppliers suspend mail service

No idea what to buy for the gardener in your life? Let us plant some ideas in your brain

Enjoy your garden through the cold months while laying the groundwork for spring

Use potato beds to plant for spring colour and summer flavour

In gardening, September is the month of reckonings and new beginnings

On rainy days a polytunnel offers warmth, seclusion and a leafy refuge

Kitchen gardening is strangely addictive, sometimes frustrating and hugely rewarding

Many different kinds of vegetables can be sown directly into the ground now

It’s a spring like no other but there are still seeds to be sown and plants to be tended

By late spring you’ll have hordes of baby plants ready to be planted outdoors, all for the price of a few packets of seeds

From peas to radishes, spuds to spinach, these will give you a harvest in no time

Spring has sprung and it’s time to get going in the garden

We can easily recreate the sense of an Australian rainforest, leafy Asian woodland or a sun-baked Mediterranean garden, at home

It may be cold and muddy but there’s pruning, planting and planning to be done

Frilly flowers, tasty potatoes and onions worth waiting for can all be grown from seed

Stop using pesticides, allow weeds to grow and go for pro-pollinator planting

Set your bird table and feeders at least two metres from ground cover so they can’t be ambushed easily by cats

Now is the perfect month to plant spring-flowering bulbs including narcissus, crocus, scilla and allium

Best of all, growing your own means avoiding supermarket bulbs shipped from China

Here’s a shortlist of just some of this year’s ‘must-haves’, along with a guide to reliable suppliers