The Lost Gardens of Heligan have just cut their first pineapple of the season, grown using an authentic Victorian technique, which they calculate would have cost the equivalent of £10,000.

The miniature fruit was grown in the restored Pineapple Pit, in the Melon Yard at Heligan, using the natural warmth of 30 tonnes of manure to heat the complex Victorian structure.

In 2010 the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is celebrating the UN’s International Year of Biodiversity and throughout the summer we’re inviting visitors to not only explore the stunning Gardens in full bloom; but to also delve into the hidden world of plant pollination and discover how plants work together with animals and insects to sustain life.

For four days each May, the grounds of the Royal Hospital in Chelsea come alive with the sights and smells of the finest collections of flowers in the world.

To Pollard a tree is to remove all / most of the foliage of a tree, forcing it to reshoot from the ends of a trunk or branch, the subsequent re-growth is then removed on a cyclical basis which is set from 1 – 5 years dependen upon the use and species.

Restoration work in Owston Wood, near Oakham in Leicestershire has transformed the area, in one of the Forestry Commission's nationwide successes in England in the upkeep of wildlife areas - Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

The British countryside has become a bore because ‘there is nothing to see or do’, says 53 per cent of the nation's adults.