Sweet potato is named Ipomea batatas and is best to plant out in Perth around October when the soil temperature is warmer. It’s a long term crop and won’t be ready to be harvested until April.

Wisteria in full flower is a heart stopper; you cant but help gasp at the sight of thousands of flowers elegantly drooping off roofs, pergolas, arbors and trees. The perfume is inebriating, its one of the greatest spectacles of spring. There are over 60 different varieties of wisteria, ranging in colour form white, ink, mauve, purple and blue.

There have been quite a few new shapes in lavenders over the past 10 years, with ruffles, frills, and pinks, white and different shades of purple. Not only beautiful and fragrant, lavender is a great attractant to bees.

Most gardeners will have had some experience with the little bundles of fluff that sticks to your plants in their hundreds. They may look like tiny pieces of cotton that the fairies have been knitting on your plants, but they are a rapidly breeding scale that breeds quickly and will cover all parts of the plant.

Over the past six years of traveling up north, I have developed a deep love of Pilbara and Kimberley gardens, both native and exotic. A plant that has slowly seeped into my heart is the Desert Rose – Adenium. It is architectural, exotic, hardy and flowers abundantly. If you can’t grow a Boab, this has to be the next best thing.

Spring has a very special feel to it. The weather is perfect for those gardening chores that we put off in winter and mid summer, so strike while the enthusiasm is high and let those creative juices flow.

Most of us don't think about pollen, only when we have lilies in a vase and the pollen hanging on the anthers stains anything it touches. We all know that pollination is required in plants to make fruit, but we know little about how pollen actually works.

Being a dog lover, my garden and I have been through a few puppies over the years, and it can be quite a challenge to keep that sweet demeanor when you find half the garden dug up, chewed or both.

There has been a lot of discussion on the causes of declining populations of bees after the January 2016 European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) review on the ban of certain pesticides. This could pave the way for a EU ban on three neonicotinoid pesticides that are believed to be partially responsible for the decline of bee colonies.

Pomegranates originate from Iran and grow as far as northern India. Being very adaptable however, they will grow just about anywhere in WA. They need rain-free hot summers, free draining soil and once established will tolerate frosts up to -9 degrees.