& Your gardening questions answered.

Send your questions to gardening@people.co.uk

winter I lost one of my three cordylines. How can I prevent this from happening again? Keith Brown, via email

often die because their centres fill with water and become frozen. You can greatly reduce the risk by loosely tying the leaves up together with soft string and wrapping the sheath of leaves with fleece or hessian sacking. It is essential to remove damp covering as soon as the danger of frost has passed, otherwise new shoots that emerge may start to rot.