Gillian Vine

An Outram gardener is getting ready for the town's annual flower show. Gillian Vine reports.

For those of us who learned to knit because that was the only way to get a new jersey, the notion of craft knitting was long an alien one. Those who aspired to great things tackled complex Aran designs or Kaffe Fassett's Tumbling Blocks but these were to demonstrate one's skill rather than be produced as artworks.

The quality of long-running series tends to bob up and down and so it is with the detective tales by American novelists Janet Evanovich and Sue Grafton.

Lilies are not difficult to grow from seed. Gillian Vine gives tips on creating your own hybrids.

Dubbed "that woman" by the Queen Mother, Wallis Simpson is generally portrayed as the gold-digging harpy who forced King Edward VIII into abdication and exile, but That Woman, Anna Sebba's biography of the Duchess of Windsor, presents a somewhat different picture.

Ben thinks his granny is utterly boring and who can wonder, as she has grey hair, false teeth and wears terrible clothes. What's more, she loves cabbage and poor Ben has to endure such horrible things as cabbage soup when he spends Friday nights there.

Two Irish gardens remind Gillian Vine of home.

Following in the footsteps of the first writer/editor of the Star Garden Book, Gillian Vine visits the English property where Harry Clarke trained.

Gillian Vine suggests Christmas gifts for gardeners.

Before the Otago Rose Society's annual show, Gillian Vine visits an Outram garden where roses are just one of the attractions.