• Plant dormant rhubarb crowns.
  • Plant pot-grown roses, hardy trees and shrubs, climbers and hedging plants.
  • Tidy up ivy, summerflowering jasmine and honeysuckles.
  • Use a hand fork to weed the rock garden and then top it off with new pea gravel or chippings, tucked gently under the rosettes to stop the damp rotting them.
  • Perk up your pots by planting new spring bedding including pansies, polyanthus and forget- me-nots.
  • Plant onion sets, lowering them into the soil so that they just disappear from view and spacing them around 10cm (4in) apart.
  • Start tying in young shoots of blackberries when you see new growth appearing.
  • Pot up plug plants which may have outgrown their original modules.
  • Take cuttings from border perennials when the first shoots appear and reach 5-8cm (2-3in) long.
  • If the weather is warm and you see fish are active, begin feeding them with wheatgerm pond fish food.