Your January gardening to-do list

It’s mid winter, but there are plenty of jobs to get on with in the garden. Here’s our top 10:

1. Cut down tatty stems of perennials such as sedum and clip ornamental grasses right back if you haven’t yet done so.
2. Treat yourself to scented winter-flowering shrubs such as daphne or stunning Hamamelis x intermedia (Witch Hazel).
3. Finish winter pruning apple and pear trees while they’re dormant, creating a goblet shape of four to five main branches, followed by a fertiliser such as poultry manure pellets and mulch.
4. Remove old and crossing branches on currant bushes to the base and cut autumn raspberries to the ground, followed by a feed.
5. Deciduous trees and shrubs can be pruned now while dormant, giving late flowering shrubs such as buddleja a good hard lop. For colourful new stems, cut mature cornus down to the base now and hardy evergreens can also be pruned, followed by a fertiliser and mulch.
6. This is the best time to divide or buy snowdrops, while they’re ‘in the green’ planting them in naturalistic groups of three, five and seven.
7. Keep on top of weeds and rake up winter leaves from your borders to deter slugs.
8. Cut summer side shoots on wisteria to 2 or 3 buds from the main stem.
9. Provided the soil isn’t frozen this is great time for planting trees and shrubs including roses while they’re dormant.
10. Give your borders a sprinkling of organic slow release fertiliser such as blood, fish and bone or pelleted chicken manure – so the nutrients will be available as your plants start to grow in spring.