Adam Frost answers your gardening questions

We asked you to send in your gardening conundrums that you’d like Adam Frost’s help and advice on. Hundreds of you sent in questions, and here, exclusively for subscribers, Adam answers a selection.

You asked:

I live in the Scottish Highlands on the west coast and we get mild winters. Could you recommend some grasses to plant between perennials?

Adam says: 

So we need some ornamental grasses for the west coast of Scotland (which is rather beautiful, by the way) to interplant with herbaceous plants. So I would go for Deschampsia. Probably gets up to about a metre, holds strong all the way through the winter. Another one a little bit taller, probably a Molinia, might collapse through the winter, but that’ll give you a really good late show. If I was going to go low, things like Hakonechloa, prefers slightly shady conditions or even something like Melica. So there you go. Hopefully that’ll get you started.

You asked:

My double-flowering snowdrops don’t seem to come back the following year, and I buy them in flower. Am I doing something wrong?

Adam says: 

Snowdrops. I think it’s an interesting subject because we can go and we can buy them as bulbs. But most people will tell you buy them in the green, which is exactly what you’re doing. You buy them in flower, in the green. So that bit I think you’re doing right. In reality, I’d buy them in bulbs, but then I containerise them, grow them on and then I plant them out. I think the next bit that’s confusing.

Are you growing them just in pots? If so, you’re doing the right thing by potting them up each year. But if you’re putting them into the garden, enjoying them and then taking them out in the garden and putting them in