Is your garden a gold mine?

By Hannah Stephenson

Before you chuck out your old gardening tools or that urn you inherited from your grandmother, check out their value because Jonty Hearnden, presenter of the BBC1 show Cash In The Attic, says you could be sitting on a goldmine. He reckons you may be able to sell anything from old paving slabs to large concrete urns, ancient tools, aged weathervanes and benches for hundreds - or even thousands - of pounds.

People who've inherited property or are clearing houses for relatives are the most likely candidates to find an Aladdin's cave of treasure in the garden.

"The most common items that may be lying around are garden urns or statuary of the 20th century, the moulded urns and the moulded figurines and birdbaths which you think are just old and don't have any value," he says.

"Actually, there's a very good second hand value for those items because dealers and interior designers like urns which look really weathered. They might only be 20 to 40-years-old, but there's a definite market for antique-looking reproduction garden urns and other items."

Such items may be made of concrete, otherwise known as reconstituted stone, and the ones fetching the most money have an 18th or 19th century feel to them, he says.

"I went into a shop the other day where there were four identical urns that were 2ft tall by 1ft wide with box bushes in them. They looked a million dollars and they were probably around £400 each."

Birdbaths, weathervanes and other ephemera all have a value, he says.

"You could easily get £100 for a birdbath in an auction sale. It has to be weathered so that it doesn't look new, which can take a few years."

Coalbrookdale garden benches, which are made of highly ornate and Victorian-looking cast iron, are extremely sought-after items which can fetch between £3,000-£6,000, he observes. The 19th century benches are often stamped Coalbrookdale or C-B Dale Co, and the seat is probably made of timber slats.

"People may be sitting on a fortune because they just don't realise how expensive these benches are," he says.

There is also a market for old garden tools, desired for their craftsmanship.

"Garden tools have a certain value. Don't just throw them away. There will be somebody out there who wants them because they just love the feel of old wooden handles and cast metalware that's not made to the same standard today.

"Good places to sell those sorts of objects are eBay and car boot sales, as people will often pay between £10-£30 for old, good quality forks and trowels if they look presentable. Expect to get less on eBay. Go for the car boot sale if you're selling anything under £20."

Also, in a house that is Victorian or older, don't forget to look down, people will pay good money for garden edging tiles from the 19th century.

"The Victorians produced a lot of garden design materials. It was the era of the municipal space where you would have a garden park which was manicured, with flowerbeds, run by the community or local town council. They were very big on gardens."

Undamaged marble is especially lucrative and will fetch thousands, while urns and ornaments can make the top hundreds.

"Where I find people need a lot of guidance is when they've inherited properties or are dealing with deceased estates. That's when people go into the garden and find hidden treasures."

Now, a new website, cashintheattic.com, has been launched to help people value their items. After uploading a few snaps of items to the website, experts will value their worth, charging from £5 per valuation. The site can help visitors research pricing and provenance.

Spring and summer are the perfect times to sell garden memorabilia, Hearnden adds. Dealers and salvage companies will buy many gardening items, while there are auction houses such as Summers Place Auctions in West Sussex, which deal specifically in high end garden statuary.

Frost damage will inevitably devalue items which would otherwise fetch a good price, he agrees.

"Once ornaments are damaged by frost, they won't have value. Check for hairline cracks because dealers won't want to buy items with hairline cracks."

Even paving slabs may be worth selling, he observes.

"York paving stone, initially laid municipally for street paving, has all now been taken up and put down into people's kitchens and interiors or put on people's patios because they really love the look.

"Now, companies make reproduction York paving slabs because it's so desirable. If you have York stone as a patio you don't want, there's probably a buyer for it. There's usually a salvage man who will want to pay you good money for it and take it away for you, all at the same time."

Even garden gnomes may fetch a price in the future, he adds. Like the William and Kate gnomes at this year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

"Those will be worth an absolute fortune one day, simply because they were the first garden gnomes allowed in to the Chelsea Flower Show and due to the subject matter and the fact that she's pregnant with the next in line to the throne, boy or girl."

Best Of The Bunch - French lavender (Lavandula stoechas)

Originating from hot, dry Mediterranean regions, French lavender makes a change from traditional lavender. With its showy bracts above the flower heads, L. stoechas is an aromatic dwarf shrub growing to 60cm tall, with narrow, grey-green leaves and short-stalked, dense, heads of tiny purple flowers surmounted by a tuft of purple bracts. There are also white forms such as 'Snowman' and others which combine two colours, such as 'Pretty Polly', which has purple flowers with white bracts. French lavender is best grown in well-drained, light soil in a warm position, sheltered from cold winds and frost. It is not fully hardy, but survives well in a sunny corner or against a warm wall, and makes an excellent container plant that can be brought under cover in winter.

Good enough to eat - Edible flowers

You can have borage or anchusa to give your salads a purple hue or to look good scattered in a fruit cup. Alternatively the bright, sizzling oranges, yellows and reds of nasturtiums can add a vibrant, peppery taste to salads, and they are all pretty easy to grow. Seeds can be sown in late spring, planted out at 10-20cm (4-8in) apart into a weed-free bed once the risk of frosts has passed. Alternatively, sow seeds directly into the soil in early summer, thinning them out once they have grown their first set of true leaves.

Harvest the flowers regularly to ensure a continuous supply, and pick them early in the day, selecting the perfect blooms to adorn your dishes.

Other edible flowers include Viola tricolor, with its deep purple, yellow and cream fragrant blooms which have a delicate, perfumed taste, courgette flowers, which can be fried and made into tempura or lightly sauteed in butter, while pretty orange pot marigolds, or calendulas, look amazing sprinkled over salads to which they add a peppery flavour.

Three ways to ... Label plants

1. Always choose a style of label that will enhance your plant collection

2. When securing labels to plants, allow for the plant to grow and never secure it around the main stem

3. Don't label everything - you don't want to turn your garden into a sea of labels. If the same plant is featured in another part of the garden, only label one specimen

What to do this week

:: Take soft and semi-ripe cuttings using non-flowering shoots of shrubs including hydrangea, spiraea, weigela, honeysuckle, pyracantha and philadelphus, as well as hedging plants

:: Sow courgettes, marrows, pumpkins and squashes directly into their growing position

:: Remove the growing points from early peas which have finished flowering to concentrate energies on pod production

:: Boost gladioli with a liquid feed every two weeks from now through to the first appearance of the flower

:: Plant 'De Caen' anemone corms under cloches for flowering in the autumn and winter

:: Deadhead border plants that have finished flowering, such as lupins, to prevent them from setting seed and to encourage them to produce a second flush of blooms later in the year

:: Pot up rooted basal cuttings of delphiniums taken last month

:: Propagate strawberries from the plantlets that form on the runners. Plunge pots of compost into the ground and peg the plantlets down into the pots with bent wire. You can cut them from the main plant when they have rooted well

:: Continue cutting back rock plants such as alyssum, aubrieta and helianthemum immediately after flowering, before they have had time to set seed

:: Layer low-growing branches of chaenomeles, cotinus and magnolia now for good propagation results

:: Continue to sow quick-growing salad crops such as lettuces, radishes and spring onions

:: During dry weather raise the cutting blades on your lawnmower and mow without using the grass box so that the clippings help retain moisture

:: Thin established seedlings of herbs such as chervil and dill to 15-30cm (6-12in) apart, according to the eventual spread of the plants.