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This weekend, I have been mostly cutting back catmint. Having spent much of last week at The RHS Chelsea Flower Show, I returned home on Thursday (feeling somewhat jaded), just in time for temperatures below 10ºC and battering rains. The catmint, and various other plants, had bee...

that are still viable. (iv) Plant the seeds that my very efficient wife has ordered. (v) Divide grasses and some herbaceous plants. (vi) Prune and tie back climbing roses. (vii) Cut back willows and dogwoods - although this can wait a bit. (viii) Plant bare

. Prune back any damaged roots, dig a decent hole and add some good compost.I will not be ordering either this (which I have christened Rosa 'Euggghh') or this (which I now call R. 'Letitia Dean on Strictly Come Dancing' - because it is too pink

.However, this is not taking full advantage of the adaptability of this plant; it is a shrub that thrives on pruning. You hack a bit off and it will come back at you with ten new shoots. As a result it is easy to shape and can be used as a very effective architectural plant

) was of a Chinese juniper 1.5m tall and 3.5m wide growing in a small, overcrowded garden. Over a period of years it was dug up, pruned and replanted until it fitted into a pot. The whole process took about a quarter of a century and is far from over.The art

to pruning. Some of you might remember the Fortnum and Mason garden designed by Robert Myers at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2007. The building at the back of the garden was covered with trained liquidambars and very effective it was.There are many reasons you

, laying lawn edging and root pruning cordon fruit trees (while, apparently wearing a pair of white cricket trousers and a double-breasted blazer!). The best tip is for a slug trap: "take an old photographic negative and a piece of tin. Solidified

more people should grow apricots. I have fond memories of an old apricot tree in my parents' garden in Wandsworth and my mother-in-law has a particularly good one trained against a wall. They are vigorous trees that get to about 3m but should be pruned

growing on a grassy bank. It has clear white flowers in summer and very prickly stems. I tend to hard prune some but not all, which means that we get a much longer flowering season. (The unpruned flower earlier.)This is the beginning of growth on a pear

Showers', a shorter variety, with almost starry shaped flowers.Philadelphus tomentosus, another large one, but it will take more shade than many.If they get a bit unruly then prune them all directly after flowering.June smells like philadelphus.