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Every garden has its fair share of slugs and the bad news is that they are around for most of the year. They're active mostly after dark, especially when it's damp. In hot dry weather they bury themselves to avoid dehydrating.Holes are chewed

Both the 1cm-long black adults and 1cm-long plump, white, legless, brown-headed larvae are a problem. The latter hide in the soil, and feed on roots (severing them) and bore into tubers from autumn to spring. Container plants are most at risk

Airborne fungal spores land on buds to infest newly-emerging leaves in spring. The fungus feeds on the young leaves and affects their development so that they become distorted. The smaller leaf size makes them less efficient at making food

into the planting hole. For established roses, a thick layer of mulch around the base of the plant will help. Before symptoms appear, apply a fungicide containing flutriafol or myclobutanil at the recommended intervals from early spring.roses - other powdery mildews

with lots of room around them so the air can circulate, and prune out any congested growth..Use a preventative copper fungicide in spring before the overwintering spores strike. Make sure you cover all the leaf surfaces.rosesearly- to late-summerMore advice

climber, which invades your garden, smothering any plants in its path.Dig, dig and dig some more! Every piece of root left in the soil will grow into a new plant, and the roots can venture down as far as 5m. So you need to be really thorough as you dig

Clover, most commonly Trifolium repens, is a perennial weed with shamrock-like leaves and fragrant white flowers. It colonises gardens and lawns using runners that fix into the ground, and competes with other plants for space to grow. Once it

, removing every piece of ground elder root that's found.Apply systemic weedkiller to the foliage as soon as it appears in spring. Re-apply throughout the growing season at four- to six-week intervals, or as soon as any re-growth appears

Left unchecked, hairy bitter cress can quickly spread to infest the whole garden. This weed can complete its lifecycle in three to four weeks to disperse thousands of seeds, all of which can germinate to release their own seeds in quick succession

Field horsetail is also known as marestail. Once established, it has roots that extend to 2m deep, and spreads by means of creeping rhizomes. The plant produces light-brown stems in late spring, topped with cone-like structures