www.bbc.co.uk/gardening

With the days growing longer, time is running out to scour the web before dirtying your hands in the garden. Despite unique features such as the nifty interactive garden-design package and virtual-reality coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show, the BBC’s site is at its most helpful in backing up television and radio programmes. There are online factsheets for the broadcasts, providing extra details of how to look after the plants discussed, the opening arrangements of gardens shown on Gardeners’ World or tips on how to build the water feature you saw on Ground Force. You can catch up on last week’s Gardeners’ Question Time, or work through Alan Titchmarsh’s How To Be a Gardener, gaining a qualification in the process. Some functions are lost on an Apple Mac, and with a dial-up connection, the interactive and video features can be infuriatingly slow — some simply never load. Fascinating and packed with information, but best with a broadband connection. Four stars

http://www.ngs.org.uk/  

The National Gardens Scheme opens up private gardens — sometimes for only one day a year — to raise money for charity. The website, with a neat, clickable map that seems to work well on PCs, Macs and all modern browsers, will direct you to gardens open in your area of England and Wales. Alternatively, you can search by opening date, or for gardens with parti-cular styles and features. If you’d like to see a spectacular azalea display this spring, for example, the search turns up 14 recommended places of interest in Kent alone. A summary of features, excellent location maps and opening details then help you to decide where to visit. It’s a simple idea, effectively executed, though more detailed infor- mation on each garden would make the site even more useful. You can find the Scottish equivalent at http://www.gardensofscotland.org/. Four stars

PLANTFINDER 

http://www.rhs.org.uk/  

Extensive and impressive, the Royal Horticultural Society’s site offers advice and information for gardeners as well as details of the society’s acti- vities. You can use the Plant Finder to pinpoint which nurseries sell a given plant: more than 65,000 varieties are included. The Plant Selector helps in choosing individual plants for particular situations — dry shade, for example, or boggy borders — or with particular features, such as golden foliage or winter flowers. The ever-reliable garden calendar provides a check list of timely chores: this month, don’t forget to plant your strawberry runners. Annual membership, which you can take out online, starts at £40. There is a vast amount of useful information here — the pages on climate change and invasive non-native plants will surprise many — but navigation could be more intuitive, and at busy times the site can be unavailable. Already very good, and improving. Four stars

SEEDS

http://www.thompson-morgan.com/  

This site sells 2,000 flower and vegetable seeds, sourced from all over the world, including patio plants, conservatory flowers and perennials. The well-chosen vegetable range includes a Healthy Eating collection and mini vegetables for small gardens, while new introductions include a scented sweet pea for hanging baskets. The selection of clematis plants is superb. Prices are not the cheapest — £1.49 for 150 marigold seeds, for example — but the range is enormous. Postage and packing costs 99p, nationally or overseas. It all works smoothly on a PC, though it can be a bit clunky with a Mac. Navigation is straightforward, with the huge selection arranged impeccably and packed with attractive images. The best seed site on the web. Four stars

CONSERVATION

http://www.plantlife.org.uk/  

A staggering 98% of wild-flower meadows have disappeared in Britain over the past 50 years, and 10 varieties of wild flower are disappearing from each county every decade. Plantlife, the international wild-plant conservation charity, aims to reverse this slide and is fighting to rescue 101 species, including the cornflower and juniper, “from the brink”. Although the site needs up- dating, and is sometimes mysteriously slow to load, it is elegant and attractive, and quickly makes clear how necessary Plantlife is. You can join online, and membership costs between £16 and £250. Accurately assessing the status of our wild flowers is an important aspect of Plantlife’s work, and the site explains the many ways in which even inexperienced lovers of wild flowers can record where specific varieties are growing and help manage wild-flower reserves. The site also dispenses sens-ible advice on how to reduce pollution, such as using phosphate-free detergents at home. Three stars

RARE PLANTS

http://www.rareplants.co.uk/

This is a wonderful site for the genuine plant- oholic. Featuring many intriguing varieties, partic-ularly unusual bulbs, woodland plants and outdoor orchids, the shop is packed with pictures, detailed descriptions and advice from Paul Christian, one of the horticultural world’s leading experts on these plants. Garden orchids start at £6.50, and prices reach £90 each for the choicest species (none of them is collected from the wild), although postage and packing costs a bargain flat rate of only £3. RarePlants is tech- nically unsophisticated, but it is a relief to find a large and comprehensive site (there are more than 3,500 pages) that loads quickly. Home-page navigation, however, could be much clearer. It is advisable to head for the Reception page on your first visit. The online ordering process is straightforward and, once completed, provides access to a members’ area with extra pictures and even more information. Remember that while many of these plants are easy to cultivate, others are expensive and suitable only for the knowledgeable, experienced gardener. Three stars

ECO-FRIENDLY

http://www.greengardener.co.uk/  

Gardening without the use of potentially damaging chemicals should be on every respons-ible plant-lover’s mind, but identifying the right organic method can be confusing if you have always used chemicals to control pests. This site not only provides masses of advice on safe sprays, preventive methods and helping natural predators to thrive in your garden, it sells bio- logical controls and other organic pest-control products. Lacewing larvae eat 300 greenflies a day, and consume mites and whitefly as well — try them out for £14.50, post-free. The site is worth a visit even if you end up buying nothing, but it is basic in style, with garish colours, inconsistent design and a general lack of organisation. In need of an upgrade. Two stars