The comforting thing about the march of the seasons in a garden is the inevitability of the cycles. It won’t be long before snowdrops make their first welcome appearance heralding spring and the whole show can start again – January is an optimistic month. Although the days are cold and the nights long, there is always something to do in the garden.

After the New Year celebrations are over, work off the excesses of the festive period by preparing borders and vegetable gardens, digging them over ready for planting in the spring. This is a very productive way of losing a few pounds and building up your muscles again. Provided the ground isn’t frozen or waterlogged, you can work the ground at any time of year. Even if the ground is frozen, there’s no excuse to do nothing in the garden. Spreading around organic matter, such as well rotted manure or homemade compost can be done over frozen soil, is less messy when frozen and will save you time later in the year. Long term, the best thing you can do for your garden is to add a good layer of organic matter over the soil while the garden is dormant and let the worms do the work.

If you are planning a new hedge, you will find that nurseries are full of bewildering varieties of bare-rooted hedging stock at the moment. A little bit of research into the best type of hedge for your garden will pay dividends in the long run. If you’re not sure which would be good in your garden, a rule of thumb is look to see what grows well in neighbouring gardens and copy! Beech, for example, is fussy about soil conditions. If you want a similar hedge, hornbeam is a good alternative, for a heavy clay soil. A little knowledge about your soil type goes a long way before planting anything. It’s well worth taking the trouble to buy a soil testing kit from your local nursery and finding out which type of soil you have – sand, clay, chalk or loam, or a combination. Next, decide on the sort of look you want to create with the hedge. If you want a formal evergreen, screening hedge, you really can’t beat yew for a classic, classy look. For an informal evergreen screen, consider Photina ‘Red Robin’; the young shoots in spring are a vibrant red (hence the name) and contrast well with an under-planting of bright yellow daffodils.