FOR gardeners who have been struggling with the unpredictable weather, expert help will be on hand at Scotland’s biggest horticultural show.

Gardening Scotland, which is being held at The Royal Highland Centre in Edinburgh from 31 May-2 June, provides access to the most experienced professionals from the world of horticulture.

LIKE a phoenix, Logie Country House has risen from the ashes to become a five-star retreat – complete with a ghost.

SERENDIPITY is how Pauline Brotherton explains finding Cleish Mill eight years ago.

EVEN keen renovators sometimes need a break, and the catalyst for that break can be finding a property that’s too good to miss, and simply doesn’t need any work.

‘WE TOTALLY fell in love with this house,’ says Steph Middleton of her home at 2 Albert Terrace in Musselburgh. “We had been looking extensively and couldn’t find anywhere in our budget that offered the same amount of space, with all the original features that we love.”

IN THE greenhouses of Kevock Garden Plants near Lasswade, many unusual kinds of primula, elegant trilliums and dactylorhizas, those delicate orchids that flourish in the harsh surroundings of bogs and heathland, are all in bud.

BANK holidays always seem to throw our household off balance.

THERE is nothing like the taste of freshly picked summer fruit, such as strawberries and raspberries, and with summer on our doorsteps now is the perfect time to plant.

THERE’S gold in them thar hills,” or so the saying goes. So it would be foolish not to try out a family leisure activity that offers the potential for economic enrichment.

IT’S my annual family get-together with almost 20 of us in a farmhouse in the North Yorkshire Moors.

MENTION a trip to Arbroath and most people will connect it with the Declaration of Arbroath signed there in 1320 following the Battle of Bannockburn.

IT IS the highlight of the British gardening world, attracting celebrities, dignitaries and members of the Royal Family and, for one week in May, putting horticulture on our TV screens and on the front pages of our newspapers.

After a slow start because of the very cold spring, we are emerging into a good flowering season.

It all began at a tea party in 1918. While working at the Foreign Office, Dundonian jute heir Euan Cox was hanging out with the literati in London one afternoon. Over what was presumably a cup of Earl Grey, the 25-year-old got chatting to garden writer Reginald Farrer.

Sleeping bag, pillow and toothbrush in hand, we arrive like orphans outside the closed entrance of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. My daughter Hope and I are guests at the first family sleepover event here.

Dave Hall and Alida Biagi look at each other quizzically and wonder why they didn’t get stressed out during the two-year creation of their new home.

John Kingsley and his wife Moya Cove knew they’d found their ideal home when they stepped into this Edwardian tenement in Glasgow’s West End

ARRIVING at Fiona McNeil and Stuart Agnew’s home in Edinburgh’s Murrayfield area, the first feature that strikes you when walking into the hallway is the scale and the light.

AS THE sun shone last weekend, our garden was plunged back into life with toys lugged from the garage and the trampoline forced with squeaky protest back into action.

Magazines remain a favourite source of inspiration for the home decorator and using these to compile a mood board is a helpful – and enjoyable – exercise.