By Emma Townshend

It's not often that someone else's Powerpoint Presentation leaves me feeling rather misty-eyed. But when Cleve West came up and said  "that got me almost sort of choked up," I had to agree with him, because I felt exactly the same. Dan Pearson was the person wielding the remote of the World's Most Annoying Piece of Presentation Software, and by the end of the talk on Wednesday evening, I think Pearson would have convinced most gardeners present to join a cult based on his worship. He could have taken the cheques there and then.

By Emma Townshend

Pretty appropriately for two of the rainiest weeks I can remember (in a fairly rainy year), tickets for next year's RHS Flower shows just went on sale. Chelsea was actually pretty good weather-wise this year, but in my mind Hampton Court 2008 will forever intertwine fond images of the Porsche garden demonstrating its superior run-off and Richard Reynolds's Guerilla effort with memories of the Independent's Cleve West looking a bit like a drowned rat. (A nice drowned rat! A nice one!)

By Emma Townshend

I am currently making my first asparagus beds; maybe that's what everybody does when they start pushing forty. However in my case it is considerably less elegant Monty Don and quite a lot more Tom and Barbara Good. I have managed to come home covered in mud from head to foot quite a few times lately.

By Emma Townshend

Visitors to the Palm House at Kew often stop to marvel at the seed of a Coco de Mer. The so-called "Seychelles Nut" has the doublefold honour firstly of producing the biggest seeds in the world, weighing in at a sturdy 17 kilos, but also looking remarkably like a curvy lady's bum.

However today's news revealed they now have a further claim to fame, playing a crucial but slightly unexpected role  in a current significant case concerning British tax law. Millionaire businessman Robert Gaines-Cooper is claiming that since the seventies he's actually been resident in the Seychelles, despite the fact that his wife, son and vintage car collection all reside in homely Oxfordshire.

By Emma Townshend

Now that autumn is officially here I think it might be time to resurrect "Plant of the Week". Over the summer months there's so much in bloom to choose from that you don't really need a Plant of the Week, but lately I've found that familiar feeling of gratitude has been returning, whenever I see something looking particularly dandy amongst the piles of fading foliage.

By Emma Townshend

Whilst other bloggers seem to have been having wonderful mycological adventures, I am stuck with rubbish news. I showed this phone picture of my front garden's latest arrivals to British fungi expert Patrick Harding at the weekend over a drink. His diagnosis? "Looks like honey fungus."

Patrick is the author of several notable books on the subject, including a new one called "Mushroom Miscellany" which compiles lots of wonderful fungal folklore - full of wonderful old stories, amazing facts and beautiful photographs too. (And it's less than £10 on Amazon! Come on!) So even though Patrick only saw a little phone picture, I didn't spend too much time doubting his expert opinion.

By Emma Townshend

It's not often I take the possibly risky step of criticising a piece that's appeared in our own paper, but I was bemused to find whist checking out the "Green List", a list of Britain's 100 top environmentalists that appeared in yesterday's paper, that only three horticultural greens made the grade.

Gardeners ought to be all over the list, though. For a start, we all know the stuff about growing your own and how it can help to reduce carbon emissions associated with food transport. Eating more home-grown veg also means that we're doing as the UN told us recently, moving over from a more animal-based diet to a more-vegetable laden one. Not only that: in the last twelve months fruit and veg sales have rocketed as the great British public experienced a kind of epiphany, falling in love with everything to do with grow bags, allotments and pinching out.

By Emma Townshend

Yeah, I'm still going on about salad. Firstly, I hope you all have a copy of this book. I know it's winter, but salad is one of the few fresh things you can just keep on growing and growing over the cold months. And, frankly, what with people going on about the Wall Street Crash this week a little bit too much for my liking, I'm deeply ready for being distracted by the idea of growing something tasty and green that costs about 5p.

By Emma Townshend

Two lots of change to the greenscape of New York City this week. One is the announcement of detailed proposals for the Ground Zero site's commemorative garden and pavilion, which have to be finished before any work on commercial buildings can start, by order of the Governor.

The roof of the new building overhangs two of the original "tree trunk" columns from the Trade Center, and leaf-like veins will pattern the roof. But the most exciting thing for me in terms of making this a place apart is the idea of an oak grove right in the heart of commercial Manhattan. Overlooking pools filled by long fountains, you can't help feeling the right note of meditation and commemoration has been created.

By Emma Townshend

Gardeners spend a lot of time getting their gardens to look nice. There are even those eccentrics who will expend hours and valuable energy improving the attractiveness of their totally utilitarian vegetable plots, for example, salad expert extraordinaire Charles Dowding plants red and green lettuces in alternating stripes for best effect. A more extreme case occurred in recent allotment cookery book Using the Plot, where ultra-anal chef and allotmenteer Paul Merrett confessed to pulling up a whole line of baby spinach simply because he realised it wasn't quite straight.