Jobs to do

■ Prepare vegetable seed beds, and sow some vegetables under cover.

■ Chit potato tubers (just stick them in egg boxes and wait for shoots to appear).

■ Check tools are sound and garden machinery is working. Give equipment the once over and apply a little TLC to anything that needs it.

■ Protect blossom on apricots, nectarines and peaches from frosts.

■ Prune winter-flowering shrubs that have finished flowering.

■ Divide bulbs such as snowdrops, and replant those that need planting ‘in the green’ while they still have fresh(ish) foliage.

■ If you are fortunate to have it, prune wisteria (pictured).

■ Prune hardy evergreen hedges and renovate overgrown deciduous hedges.