No it wasn’t Confucius who said it but a bloke in the bar – and he did have a point!

I have seen a few cranes dotted around, so fingers crossed that everything is on the move again.

What I have definitely seen more of is roadside skips and builders ripping out kitchens and bathrooms.

It may be a mixture of people who have owned the property for a while and recognise that it needs to be refurbished to bring it up to standard, and those who may have bought a used property to take advantage of the lower prices nowadays, and also improving their investment.

In any case, this is a good sign for us because these apartments will also require some interior design work, even if it is only new curtains and a bit of a redesign.

We are currently working on a couple of apartments in Cristian Sur, where they are being completely gutted.

We have stored the existing furniture for the clients (free of charge) while the builders do their work, and then resprayed some of the furniture, and replaced some with new items.

Once the builders have finished, the property will be cleaned, and we can install all the items, original and new, in one go.

In one particular case, they are changing from a rather dated, flowery, pine sofa bed, to a bright-purple, modern sofa bed and chair, and the original wood furniture painted white.

Add to that some white curtains with a hint of purple and silver, and it’s going to look spectacular,  particularly when we add some pictures and cushions using the purple accent colour.

Not all people are so bold with their choice of colours, but even a change of curtains, or a few throws and cushions, can make a big difference.

By respraying their lounge furniture, the clients have saved money on replacements, and invested this (wisely, I must say) in a comfortable and practical sofa bed.

Other improvements are cosmetic, but will give the effect that the apartment looks brand new. And with that colour sofa, it will definitely have the Wow factor.

Whether you rent your property out, or use it yourself on a regular basis, the comfort of the sofa bed and beds themselves will have a major effect on whether you have a comfortable stay or not.

So these are items worth spending a bit more on, and maybe saving in other, purely cosmetic areas.

Equally, if building and furnishing work is being done, this is good for the whole Island, as all those builders working, buying, etc, means there will be more money in the local economy.

And an improvement for all of us!

Waitrose Flower Garden will seasonally comprise 850 different flowers, plants, bulbs and seeds over the coming year as well as 80 gardening tools and garden care products in store, and on the website, waitrosegarden.com.

Elements of the Waitrose Flower Garden range will launch in all shops by mid April and a total of 41 branches will also dedicate at least 120 sq ft of outdoor space each to the range including an outdoor gardening ‘shed’ selling plants and gardening accessories.

The range will include a variety of plants from topiary to herbs and fruit trees to herbaceous flowering plants with prices ranging from £3 to £75. A total of 40% of the in-shop flower range will be British and 20% supports the Waitrose Foundation in Kenya.

Alan Titchmarsh, who earlier this month came on board at Waitrose to help raise the profile of British agriculture and horticulture, will offer his expert gardening tips and green-fingered advice to Waitrose shoppers on the site.

Alan will share tips on garden care in the ‘how to’ area of the site including appearing in video clip demonstrations, write monthly musings on myriad subjects and pick his top 50 gardening products for each season. Customers will be able to sign up for a monthly e-newsletter containing exclusive access to seasonally relevant content.

They brighten up gardens – or patios – and fill the air with a delicious scent whenever the plant is in flower,

But lemons are a challenge, even with our climate here, and, like all citrus fruit, they need consistent care to be successful.

Lemons, and citrus generally, are not frost-hardy, which won’t apply toTenerife, of course, unless you’re living up in the hills.

They are self-fertile, though, which means you get fruit even if you have just the one plant.

Lemon trees range in size at maturity from 60cm (2ft) tall to 2.5m (8ft) or more. They have mid-green, long-oval, evergreen leaves, and the wine-coloured buds open into white, five-petal, fragrant, star-like flowers.

The fruit take about nine months to swell and ripen, so there are often flowers and lemons on the plant at the same time, which is a most appealing sight.

They flower most prolifically in spring inEngland, but as long as the night temperature stays above 11C (52F), so that the plant does not become dormant, many will bloom in autumn and winter, too.

If you do take the plunge, it is best to buy a grafted plant of a named cultivar from a reputable source.

Yes, it is exciting to grow plants from pips, but

they take some years to flower and may never bear decent fruit.

Stephen Read, of Reads Nursery, which holds the National Collection of Citrus, recommends a variety: the compact and easy La Valette, the fussier but equally-prolific Meyers Lemon if space is limited, and the much bigger Quatre Saisons, which you may find listed in catalogues as Garey’s Eureka, for heavier crops of lemons, which are as acid as commercial varieties.

He also plumps for Imperial, which crops well once a year on a vigorous bush, and the remarkable Ponderosa, which produces lemons the size of grapefruits!

Read finds that lemons grow best in John Innes No 2 compost, with 25% extra horticultural grit or perlite by volume to promote sharp drainage, which is vital. And they can be grown in terracotta or plastic pots.

Do avoid over-potting established trees because they need moving only every two to three years into a pot one size up. Otherwise, simply take off the top 2.5cm (1in) of soil each spring and add fresh compost.

These plants should be well soaked when watered and then left alone until almost dry again. Never let them dry out completely, however, or they will drop leaves and flowers.

Mist the foliage regularly with water to raise the humidity (they like about 50%), or put the pot on a tray of wet pebbles.

Lemons are greedy feeders so, ideally, they should be given a high-nitrogen feed frequently from March, when the clocks go forward, until October, when they go back, followed by a more balanced feed in autumn and winter.

Also, lemons are happiest if put outdoors in late May, since it is hard to achieve sufficient ventilation under glass in summer.

Again, that obviously does not apply to conditions over here, whatever the time of year.

But it is important to avoid the roots being baked by the sun, so make sure your pots are in the shade during the fierce summer heat ofTenerife.

And if you have the urge to grow lemon trees inBritain, you’ll need to put them in a greenhouse before the frosts.

Lemons, like all citrus, resent fluctuations of temperature, humidity and light levels, so keep a daily eye on them.

And don’t despair if flowers or small fruits fall off because a substantial drop is natural and inevitable.

The campaign, created by the Mother London company, features a 60-second advert and a two-minute music video, as well as outdoor, press and online ads.

Freddy Mandy, creative director at Mother, said: “To us, gnomes symbolise the lacklustre state of the nation’s gardens.

“They are tired, old-fashioned and uninspired. So we imagined the gnomes’ reaction to a family installing new, exciting, modern, garden furniture into their territory. It sparks a turf war, quite literally.”

The idea is to inspire people to give as much thought to how they furnish their outdoor space as they would any room inside of their house

Peter Wright, IKEA marketing manager for theUKandIreland, said: “It’s our ambition to continue the revitalisation and transformation of the IKEA brand.

“Our goal is to raise awareness of the wide range of outdoor solutions available in the IKEA store, which can help them transform their outdoor space.

“It will demonstrate how easy and affordable it is to treat your outdoor spaces just like any other room in the home, ultimately encouraging consumers to choose IKEA for all their outdoor home furnishing needs.”

The amateur gardener will now be mentored by The One Show gardener, Christine Walkden, and RHS Chelsea Flower Show Gold Medal-winning designer, Adam Frost, for an action-packed journey learning about plants, garden design and landscaping, before creating the garden of her own design at the world-famous show.

Hundreds of people submitted garden designs and entered the competition to create a family garden for The One Show at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show.Victoria’s design was selected from a final short list of three designs.

Victoria’s garden design aims to remind adults what it is like to see the world in a new perspective, as if it was for the first time, as a child does. The garden will primarily be viewed from below, as if seen from the floor of a forest. The plants and sculptural features of the garden are enlarged and towering, making the onlooker feel small and child-like.

Dave Green from the RHS shows team says: “The standard of entries was really high and we had a difficult time selecting the winner.

“Vicky had an original and imaginative approach that led to a visually exciting garden. We felt that her creative confidence would be a valuable addition to the professional team she will join at the show.”

In the garden there is a large ‘toadstool’ play house for children and gigantic tree roots spreading from the far right corner. A natural waterfall flows over the bark of the tree roots, and back into the surface, creating a water feature.

This week I found a new source of complete inspiration, ideal if you’re stuck for space.

In life there are few things that are more satisfying than growing your own food.

Have you ever thought of turning a wooden pallet on its end, filling it with soil and immediately you have a tall planter, it looks very rustic.

Jars and tins can be painted and mounted to the wall, they’re cute and practical. The man who lives opposite me is growing his herbs in halved large water bottles that he has screwed to the wall!

A crazy idea that I would never have thought of, get a shoe tidy, fill the pockets with soil and plants.

Halved pieces of guttering make an ideal planter also, I know guttering is slightly rare here and expensive.

Any old wooden box, such as a wine box look gorgeous planted up with herbs.

The possibilities are endless.

There’s no need to grow fields and fields of potatoes, but perhaps try and grow something which is rare, expensive in the shops or is better tasting when freshly cut.

One such vegetable which I think would be good to grow, but a little difficult here is Wasabi. Wasabi has become a watchword on menus on the past 18 months, it’s a member of the Brassicaceae family along with cabbages, mustard and horseradish but is native to Japan.

Ironically, it’s sometimes called Japanese horseradish.

Its root is used as a condiment and has an extremely strong flavour. It’s a hotness more akin to that of a hot mustard than that of a chilli pepper.

Wasabi is generally sold either as a root which is very finely grated before use, as dried powder in large quantities, or as a ready-to-use paste in tubes similar to travel toothpaste tubes.

Once the plant’s root is grated for use it loses its flavour in 15 minutes.

Wasabi is difficult to cultivate, and that makes it quite expensive. Due to its high cost, a common substitute is a mixture of horseradish, mustard, starch and green food coloring. Outside of Japan, it is rare to find real wasabi plants.

Wasabi Plant

So growing your own is the perfect way to ensure you get an authentic Japanese experience.

As well as the potent stem, the beautiful lily pad shaped leaves have a gentler wasabi tang and are fantastic wrapped around raw or smoked salmon with pickled ginger and a slick of cream cheese; exotic hors d’oeuvres your friends will never have tried before!

Wasabi prefers overcast, damp, cooler weather, not ideal for Tenerife but try it and see how you get on. Plant in a damp, shady spot and keep well watered. You can harvest the leaves after a year but the stems take a little longer so you may be as well to purchase a more established plant.

The new book includes more than 4,300 new plants added since the last edition and reflects the results of the recent Award of Garden Merit (AGM) review, together with the revision of the associated RHS Hardiness Ratings System. In a short essay, Dr John David, RHS Acting Head of Science, explains the background to the new hardiness ratings system that can be used by gardeners to make informed choices about which plants to buy.

Janet Cubey, Editor-in-Chief of RHS Plant Finder 2013, says: “Compiling RHS Plant Finder each year is a mammoth task. However, the book is such a favourite with gardeners up and down the country and the reaction it gets is always so positive that it’s well worth the effort. The book also holds the key to discovering gardening trends early and always gives readers a bit of insight into what might be appearing in gardens all around them later in the year. Looking for new plants that have a large number of listed suppliers is usually good way of predicting which plants nurseries are really excited about, and is generally a good advance indicator of success.”

Some of the new entries appearing in RHS Plant Finder 2013 are:

• Geranium ‘Azure Rush’
• Cirsium rivulare ‘Trevor’s Blue Wonder’
• Choisya x dewitteana ‘Aztec Gold’
• Clematis CHELSEA (‘Evipo100’)

RHS Plant Finder 2013 is available to preorder online at www.rhs.org.uk/shopping and in all good bookshops from 11 April 2013.

Chelsea Plant Hunters will act as spokespeople for the show, they will share their passion for plants in order to educate, inform and inspire visitors. Located in the heart of the show; the Great Pavilion, Chelsea Plant Hunters will be amongst floral exhibits from the UK’s top specialist nurseries and exotic floral exhibits from around the world, and will be on hand to add that special something to the show.

To be part of the most world’s most famous flower show

email planthunters@rhs.org.uk. Full training will be provided. Applications close on Tuesday 26th March 2013.

The clock hands need to be replaced and hopefully this will be completed by May.

The Department of Public Utilities, run by Damaso Arteaga, has temporarily dismantled the famous flower structure. Damaso Arteaga said, “Most of the breaks are caused by vandalism, play activities of children or simple oversight, sometimes leading to the needles bending or forcing the clock machinery.”

Damaso Arteaga continued “The hands have suffered more damage so we have therefore decided to temporarily withdraw it.” They anticipate that “we will provide smaller replacement hands in the May holidays”.

The council said “the first option was a perimeter fence, but it seemed that the clock, a symbol of this city, would lose its attractiveness, especially as to the identity of the resident’s closeness and visitors.” For Arteaga, “the primary objective is to continue to operate and maintain the hands so that they mark the minutes and hours.”

Parque García Sanabria is a public urban park in the heart ofSanta Cruz de TenerifeinTenerife. It was inaugurated in 1926. It is a large garden area, combined with fountains and architecture.

Its name derives from the Mayor Garcia Sanabria, who approved its construction. It is the largest urban park in theCanary Islands. It has an area of 67,230 square metres (723,700 sq ft).

The park’s floral clock was manufactured inSwitzerlandby the house Favag and was gifted to the city by the Danish consul P. Larsen in 1958. The flower clock is flanked by two staircases and is constantly adorned with fresh flowers.