• If the soil is workable, dig in a 5cm (or more) layer of compost or well-rotted manure into your beds to prepare for the growing season ahead. You can also work in a general purpose fertiliser such as pelleted chicken manure or fish, blood and bone.
• If you need to plant or move deciduous trees, roses or shrubs, now is the ideal time to do so provided the soil is not frozen or waterlogged.
• Feed trees, shrubs and hedges with a slow-release fertiliser such as fish blood and bone by lightly forking it into the soil surface.
• Plant summer-flowering bulbs in beds, borders and containers
• Now is an ideal time to plant herbacious perenial. Lift and divide established perennial plants now to improve their vigour and create new plants for your garden.
• If any of your garden plants will need supporting this year, put the supports in now so the plants grow up through them. Adding supports afterwards is difficult and often looks unattractive.
• Feed roses with a special rose feed or a balanced fertiliser as they come into growth.
• Prune roses to encourage strong new growth. Remember to wear good gardening gloves to protect from thorns.
• Hardy annuals can be sown directly into the soil. Alternatively sow them in pots or modules for
planting out later in the spring.
• Finish cutting back shrubs grown for their colourful winter stems such as Cornus and Salix. Cut them back to their bases..
• Cut back any dead foliage left on your perennials and ornamental grasses to make way for new growth.
• Prune overwintered fuchsias back to one or two buds on each shoot.
• Get your lawnmower serviced and sharpened ready for the new season.
• Buy seed potatoes and lay out to chit ready for planting
• Trim winter-flowering heathers as the flowers disappear, to prevent the plants becoming leggy.
• Cut off the old leaves of Helleboras to remove any foliar diseases and make the spring flowers more visible.
• Continue to deadhead faded flowers from your winter pansies to stop them setting seed. This will encourage flushes of new flowers throughout the spring.