in the garden

Banish the winter blues with pots or window boxes of heartwarming violas, polyanthus or primulas. Up the perfume stakes

with a heavenly scented daphne bush. They perform best in a coolish spot that gets dappled morning sun and afternoon shade. Check out the fabulous

japonica camellias now in nurseries. Get one growing happily and you’ll have flowers each winter into spring for years to come.

Divide rhubarb or plant new crowns.

Sprinkle gypsum on lawns in clay-soil areas to get them growing better. Do it before the winter rains and the gypsum will be gently washed into the soil. Cut back hydrangeas if you didn’t do it earlier in the year. A good guide is to cut them 20-30cm from the ground, just above a pair of plump buds.

Get garden beds ready for planting bare-root roses and deciduous trees. But don’t plant new roses where older ones were grown or they’ll fail to thrive. Treat unused vegie beds to a season of green manure crops. Good choices are field peas and oats, or look for mixed green-manure seeds in packs. Once plants are about to flower, cut them to the ground with a line trimmer and dig into the soil – it will love you!

Hold off fertilising tender plants in cold zones until late winter or early spring. If you do it now, the new foliage will be burnt by frost.

Give citrus trees a winter once-over, checking for signs of scale insects. If present, a few weekly sprays of horticultural oil should do the trick.

Lift and divide herbaceous perennials such as cannas, phlox and asters. Use a sharp spade and cut or pull apart clumps, getting rid of older, less vigorous sections. Replant the younger sections that remain.

If leaf curl has been a problem with nectarine and peach trees in the past, hit them with a protective spray of a fungicide before budding starts.

Chrysanthemums