Flowers

Removing deadheads from rhododendrons and azaleas will pay dividends with better displays next spring.

Sweet peas sown now will bloom late in the season. In general, heritage varieties have better perfume but smaller flowers. Sweet pea seed can be sown in rich soil, then seedlings thinned to 10cm12cm apart.

Less wasteful is to sow them in seed boxes and plant out when the first pair of true leaves appears. Keep plants watered or they will produce small, miserable flowers on short stems.

Primulas, polyanthus, primroses and auriculas should be divided as soon as the plants have finished flowering. Prepare ground for them by adding rotted horse or cow manure or compost. If the soil is heavy clay, add coarse river sand to help it drain.

The plants like to be firmly fixed in the soil with the lower leaves just above the surface. Old plants tend to lift out of the soil and will fail to flower freely if left undivided too long.

Wallflowers (Cheiranthus) are old fashioned flowers with a distinctive sweet fragrance. Seed sown now should give springflowering plants. They keep going for years if deadheaded during the flowering season and cut back by half after flowering.

Like most springblooming shrubs, lilacs can be pruned when flowering has finished. A mulch of decayed manure, mixed with some garden lime, will improve lilacs.