GARDENING / Update: Escapist planting

TO THOSE without conservatories (like me), Ann Bonar's new book, The Complete Guide to Conservatory Plants (Collins and Brown, pounds 16.99), provides perfect escapist reading. To those with conservatories - or at least the ones I have shown it to - the book provides the answer to many troubling questions: how to mix plants in a conservatory, how to make displays such as desert plants or water plants and how to detect the first signs of a thrip attack or the curse of the red spider. There is a comprehensive directory of plants (all illustrated) and a section on managing a conservatory.