Country & Garden: Weekend Work

TAKE CUTTINGS now of tender perennials (for example: marguerites, fuchsias, osteospermums) if you have no space in a frost-free greenhouse or conservatory to put dug-up plants in pots.

Bring in house plants from outside, sponge their leaves, remove weeds and replace the top inch or so of compost.

In mild areas, easy types of hardy annuals such as nigella can be sown now.

Half-hardy annuals in pots are beginning to run out of steam. A last deadheading may encourage them to a final burst. Otherwise, put them and their soil on the compost heap. Plant up, if wanted, with spring bulbs, winter-flowering pansies, small evergreen shrubs, ivies and so on.

If you are wanting to lay, or seed, a new lawn in the spring, prepare the soil now.

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