Gardening made easy with your PC

With summer on its way it's time to dust off the garden furniture, put away the winter woollies and head for the garden to take in some wholesome outdoors living. It also means it's time to get the mower and shears out of hibernation from the shed and start getting your garden back into shape.

This needn't involve merely beautifying borders and reversing the ravages of the winter months; spring is also the perfect time to change the layout of your lawn and introduce new plants and features.

Tempting as it is to get stuck in, some time spent researching and planning the changes you want to make before you start digging and planting can make all the difference, and your PC is the perfect resource to help.

A visit to some of the great gardening websites can provide inspiration, practical advice and tips from experts and other green-fingered web users. You can even stock the shed and buy plants and seeds online, or use specialist software to plan and visualise a new garden design. Even commonly used office programs such as Excel can help you keep tabs on garden maintenance and chores.

Strange as it may seem, the home PC is the perfect gardening companion, so join us as we discover just how easy it is to improve your garden with a little help from modern technology.

The facts of plant life
Knowledge of the plants you're dealing with is key to successful gardening and there are plenty of fact-filled websites that will arm you with all the information you need.

A good place to start is the Royal Horticultural Society. Among the useful sections and features on offer is the Plant Selector, providing information on thousands of plants from suggested locations for planting to vulnerability to disease. Each reference includes links to nurseries that have the particular plant in stock.

Annual membership of £40 entitles you to more detailed information, as well as free entrance to RHS gardens and various other discounts and concessions. The Gardener's Calendar is also handy and breaks down the jobs you'll need to perform in the garden month by month.

There are also rich pickings to be found at the BBC Gardening website. This comprehensive site includes a plant encyclopaedia, gardening tips, news, layout and design advice, some good sections on getting children interested in gardening and details of the various annual flower shows.

You can share your gardening tales and expertise with others using the BBC's well-populated message board service, and sign up for a weekly gardening newsletter. We found the BBC site to be the best free gardening resource on the web, and were particularly impressed that it caters for everyone; whether you have a sprawling estate or a small urban space, there'll be something for you to dig into.

The UK Gardening website is also packed with useful information. The main page includes a weekly Gardener's Diary, which will keep you up to speed on what to plant or prune at any given time. Look out for the Projects section, which contains handy pointers on projects such as creating a compost heap or building a pond.

For a more community-based approach, take a look at Carry On Gardening where you'll find honest, impartial advice. We were particularly impressed by the Tools section, which includes detailed, practical advice on how to avoid paying over the odds for your gardening equipment.

Some of the national newspapers also feature gardening sections on their websites. The Daily Telegraph site is probably the most comprehensive. You have to register in order to access most of the content, but it is free to do so. Once you do, you can enjoy an excellent selection of features as well as a weekly gardening diary and links to an online shop.

The gardening section of The Times includes a forum with gardening expert Jane Owen and links to a spring gardening catalogue and online shop. There is also a limited gardening section on The Mirror's website here.

Grand designs
Improving the garden is one of the easiest ways to add value to your property and, if you're thinking about building a rockery or a water feature, there are programs available that will let you experiment on a virtual garden before spending a penny or touching a spade.

Most home design programs feature tools for landscaping your garden but dedicated garden design software is far more comprehensive. One such program that's cheap and easy to use is 3D Landscape 2 (£10).

You can create a bird's eye view of your garden and a 3D view to see how it will look in real life and experiment with placing things in different locations. You can also factor in seasonal changes to help balance your choice of plants.

Accompanying each of the 2,200 plants and flowers loaded into the program is relevant information on each plant's ideal climate and position and other tips such as watering and pruning techniques.

At the other end of the scale is Master Landscape Pro (£50). This gives you precise control over every aspect of your home, not just the garden. It will take a lot longer to get to grips with - and the 300-page manual is proof of that - but it is a hugely powerful resource if you're building or renovating a whole property. You can create some truly impressive walk-throughs and there is an extensive library of plants, although the information included on each is basic.

Both these programs, and most similar titles, feature cost estimators for planning how much your improvements are likely to set you back, but we would not recommend basing your budget too closely on this as prices will vary and few home improvement projects ever run on budget.

If you're undertaking an extensive garden overhaul, it's more useful to work to a rough figure. Even if you don't use the cost calculator, being able to experiment with different garden designs on screen can be valuable and save you time when you come to execute your plans.

You may also want to consider investing in Complete Gardens (£25). This is essentially just a plant encyclopaedia but it is a highly detailed and comprehensive reference resource. Also worth a mention is the Geoff Hamilton range (£10 to £20). This budget software may be a bit dated but the reference material is very useful.

Be prepared
The underlying concept behind any gardening software or website is that you should plan your strategy ahead of time. So instead of having to trawl through an encyclopaedia of plants whenever you need information, why not create your own database with all the information that's relevant to you, pulled in from as many sources as you wish?

On a blank spreadsheet in Excel, create headings along the top row, such as Name of plant, Date planted, Watering needs, Sunlight needs, Notes, and so on. You can adjust the width of each column to accommodate the text: click on the line between columns, hold the mouse button down and drag it.

Under each heading create an entry for each plant you wish to track, entering the relevant information in each column. You can adjust the height of columns in the same way that you change the width.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and you can set up a slideshow in PowerPoint to plot the progress of your landscaping or provide a reminder of how your garden looked this summer when spring comes around next year. It can be interesting to see what worked and what didn't work so well when the time comes to plan the next year's floral displays.

In PowerPoint, open a blank presentation and when the New Slide dialogue box appears with a number of Auto Formats to choose from select either Text and clipart or Clipart and text to start creating your slideshow. From there, simply follow the instructions to add your text and images. To add a new slide with a picture, click on Insert and then New Slide, and simply repeat the process. To view your slideshow, click on Slide Show and then on View Show.

That's not all your PC can do to help out in the garden. Microsoft Outlook, for example, has its own calendar which allows you to set reminders, while a digital camera can be put to good use in creating an image library of the plants in your garden. Again, you can take this as far as you want.

Stock up online
There's nothing worse than trying to work with rusty old tools and, fortunately, there are plenty of websites that let you stock up your shed in a jiffy. The online branches of Homebase and B&Q have a wide range of gardening products, from furniture and tools to the garden shed itself. It's a good way of buying bulky or heavy products as the online store will deliver to your door, saving you the bother of lugging them around.

For seeds and plants, most of the gardening websites we have already mentioned are linked to online shops, while the RHS site provides links to more than one stockist of most plants and flowers. Of course, it always helps to shop around and it might be worth checking online gardening forums, and in particular the Carry On Gardening site, for some pointers on where to look for the best value.

Blooming marvellous
Many people consider gardening to be a form of disaster management: mow the lawn, pull out the weeds and keep the pond clean. But using your computer and the internet as allies, it can become so much more.

Whether you're just looking to maintain your garden more efficiently, or have grand plans to build your own Eden, your computer provides you with all the tools you need right at your fingertips.

With a bit of imagination, the willingness to do some hard work, the right facts at your disposal and a few green fingers, you can create the sort of garden that you will look forward to spending time in. And with summer on its way, that's something to look forward to.