Rachel Clark is senior gardener at Walmer Castle Gardens, near Deal - where one of her main responsibilities is looking after both the cutting and kitchen gardens.

I wanted to find out more about her beautiful gardens and what was involved in creating them.

Back in 2013 when Rachel joined English Heritage - the nationwide charity that owns the castle along with 400 other historic buildings, monuments and sites - the cutting garden had been riddled with bindweed.

Over the course of two winters, and with an extremely helpful team of volunteers, Rachel removed all of the perennials. This meticulous operation meant that all of the flowers that were to be replanted had to have their roots washed to eradicate any trace of bindweed as it can root from even a 1mm piece.

With two clear beds and organic manure dug through to enrich the soil, the team replanted some of the perennials, taking the opportunity to introduce some new interesting colour combinations.

“As you stand in the kitchen garden facing the castle, the layering and textures of the flowers are clear to see," said Rachel.

"There's less of the rigid formality of traditional cutting gardens. There's now a much looser style of planting - it's subtle and softer - but the garden still incorporates some punchy strong colours, such as the red dahlia bishop of Llandaff and deep purple scabiosa black knight.

"The idea was to break these stronger colours up using complimentary softer coloured flowers such as the achillea and corncockles and pink veronicas."

Rachel added: "Foliage plays an important role in the cutting garden with soft grasses, miscanthus (More commonly known as Elephant Grass) and panicum, helping to break up the colour but all still used in our floral arrangements."

Ideas for your garden to ensure flowers for displays from spring to autumn...

Start with hyacinths, tulips, iris, sisyrinchium striatum, cerinthe purpurea, sweet peas, lavender, corncockle, pink veronicas, pink, hemerocallis plus yellow and red roses. Rachel’s favourite rose is rosa troika, a two-tone pinky orange scented hybrid tea, with a great vase life.

Then come the alliums - schubert, cristophii, purple rain and sphaerocephalon all last well in the vase.

Next it's the lilies, a good choice is the forever susan asiatic lily which is deep purple with an orange edge

Dahlias, go for rudbeckia autumn colours and cherry brandy. These are both grown as annuals, but look good in a vase.

Other suggestions include...

Scabiosa, black and pink

Cornflower black ball

Cosmos Xanthos a new dwarf variety and pink dianthus - these are planted in the spaces where the tulips and hyacinths are lifted from.

Agapanthus blue and white follow on well from alliums

Coreopsis (tickseed)…great yellowy orange heads on light stems..loose but punchy

Glut of courgettes?

Have you tried any of the following to help use them up instead of wasting them.

Courgette cake: Use as an alternative to carrot for courgette cake.

Courgette and pesto tortilla: Fry sliced courgette, add beaten egg cook until set to make a tortilla, cutting in half widthways spread with pesto replace half and cut into wedges, top with tomatoes.

Crisp summer salad: Use a vegetable peeler to shave off long, thin slices of the courgette, discard seeds and mix with fennel, lettuce leave and vinaigrette.

Roasted veg cous cous: Chop the courgette into wedges with aubergine, red onions and peppers, roast with olive oil, garlic and harissa when ready stir through the cous cous.

Spaghetti bolognese: Grate the courgettes into mince for hidden veg and to use less meat.