To make a room appear larger

Choose colours from the cool end of the colour wheel.
Paint all surfaces the same colour.
Keep flooring dark and walls light , the floor space will appear to expand.
A low ceiling will appear higher if painted a lighter shade than the walls or put some mouldings up and paint them a darker shade than the ceiling.
Use the deepest tone of colour near to the floor and the lightest shade on the ceiling. This will give the illusion of space. Try it the other way around to see how a room can be made to look smaller.
Large pieces of furniture will appear smaller if they are the same colour as the walls.
A small room doesn't have to be painted in light colours. Emphasise its cosiness by painting it a midnight blue or deep red.

If you are lost and uninspired when it comes to finding the perfect palette to decorate your home, simply look around you. Just like Mother Nature, you can make it work for you.
Flowers are perfect for studying complementary colours. Look at the delicate mauve of a crocus bulb paired with its opposite colour of vibrant yellow on its stamens, or consider the vibrant red berries nestling beside a glossy, green holly leaf.
Nature demonstrates how a toning scheme never needs to be dull. Think of the several different shades of green leaves, grass and trees beautifully co-existing.
If you want a harmonious colour scheme, study the myriad shades of golden yellow and russet reds slowly turning into copper on an autumnal day, or look at a garden border to see how the pinks of lupins graduate into the bluey mauves and purples of delphiniums and foxgloves.

You may have loads of ideas for different colour schemes in each room of your house and be dying to give them all a try. But stop and think of the overall effect when all the doors are open and you can see into each room. In a smaller house this can tend to look a bit of a mish-mash.
If you'd like to draw the whole scheme together, choose an overall colour for the entire house and then use it in different ways in each room. Larger houses are slightly more forgiving as long as you pay attention to the meeting points.
Choose harmonious colours. You could paint one room blue, the adjacent one a greeny blue, the next purple etc.Alternatively stick to one colour but use a different tone of it for each room, for example, going from a pale shade of blue to a dark one. This works especially well if your rooms open into one another.

Vegetable growers and farmers who want to avoid using pesticides on their crops sometimes use companion planting, but you can practise the same techniques in the rest of the garden.
How does it work?
The theory works on many different levels. It is about choosing plants that have additional properties and functions, beyond simply being ornamental or a food supply, and using them in combination with one another.

Plants can benefit their neighbours in different ways by:

• giving off scent or chemicals that repels insects;
  attracting beneficial insects that are predators to harmful insects ;
  attracting insects that are pollinators for other plants;
  attracting harmful insects and therefore distracting them from the main prize crop;
  absorbing minerals from the soil so they can be ploughed back into the soil as fertiliser, for example, green manures;

Small, single stemmed trees are cheap and can be trained from scratch. Specialist growers sell partly trained trees, these ready-made espaliers should flower and fruit in the first or second year. Purchase espaliers from garden centres or mail-order from specialist nurseries, which sell them bare-rooted for winter planting. Buy two trees as most apples need to grow near another apple tree that flowers at the same time for cross-pollination.

Growing tips
Water trees regularly until they are established.
Tie down any extension growth from each tier to the training wires.
Prune from late July to mid-August, shortening any sideshoots that are growing directly from each arm back to three leaves from their base.
Cut any smaller shoots growing from these back to just one leaf and prune away any extra shoots that are growing out of the main stem of the tree.

Buying plants

What to look out for
Flowers: if the plant is in flower, check it matches the picture on the label. If it doesn't and you'd like to buy it, ask the staff to identify it for you.
Leaves: unless they're supposed to be coloured or variegated, leaves should be a healthy shade of green. Look out for any signs of pests and diseases.
Stems and branches: look for a plant that has an attractive shape. Avoid ones with broken stems or branches.
Compost: moss, liverwort or weeds in the pot are not freebies that you want. Also watch out for compost that is bone dry.
Roots: knock the plant gently and take a look at the roots. A good plant will fill its pot with roots. Avoid any where the roots are jammed in and curling around as these have been in their pot too long and are pot-bound. Also avoid any that have only recently been repotted and are more compost than roots.