Weekend Gardening Update: Gardens galore

EIGHTEEN million of Britain's 22 million households have a garden (or access to one), but 5 per cent of all gardens are totally neglected - 900,000 gardens going to waste. Three in four gardens have flowerbeds, one in three has fruit of some kind, one in four contains vegetables, one in five a patio.

The average gardener spends six or seven hours a week working in the garden. In only a quarter of households are gardening duties shared between members of the family. People in the South spend more time gardening than those in the North. The average lawn is cut 38 times a year, producing 850lb of grass clippings. Use it as mulch. Don't take it to the tip.

There are more than three million greenhouses in the country, half of them heated. Aluminium frames are the most popular, and the best- selling size is 8ft by 6ft. Tomatoes, which should already be growing away, are the most popular greenhouse crop. Fancy that.