We have praised fire boxes before – and expect to do so again. The smell of wood smoke is delicious, providing it is not blowing into your face, and on a chilly evening it is great to sit round a garden fire – perhaps with the accompaniment of folk songs and beer. And if you ever tire of these pleasures the fire box can be used as a planter.

Which is the best garden trowel?

• The floral design is the prettiest but the round tip is better suited to shoveling soil into a flower pot than extracting a reluctant weed from a flower border.
• The two left-hand trowels are reasonably pointed and the soil will not stick to them. But the metal is not thick enough and user testing soon bent both of them just below the handle.
• So the BULLDOG Tanged Rockery Trowel is the best. I don’t have a rockery but it is great for removing weeds from just about anywhere in the garden. It is sharp and strong and it lets you remove ‘the enemy’ without damage to precious plants. Bought last month, the recommended retail price was £9.60 (inc vat) in the UK.