Hellebores are such a welcome sight through the winter and early spring months.

They brighten the shady areas of my garden and their flowers cope well with the worst of conditions.

Coming in a range of colours to suit all tastes the full hardy hellebore is commonly called the Christmas rose but isn’t actually related to the rose family at all.

They prefer rich, well-drained soil in dappled shade and don’t need a lot of maintenance but their subtle flowers can be hidden by their large leaves, so to help show them off and encourage insects to pollinate the flowers, remove old leaves.

Make sure you dispose of any leaves that have black blotches, as this is a symptom of the fungal disease leaf spot. Deadhead flowers as they go over.

Cut off the flowered stems of stinking hellebore (the green hellebore) to ground level after flowering.

Bamboo

Time to tidy up your bamboo, removing any whiskery shoots before the fresh shoots start to come up from the base. Use secateurs to remove side-shoots as close to the canes as possible and the oldest canes at the base to let in light and air and to show off the mature canes.

I have a black bamboo (phyllostachys nigra) and it’s definitely worth doing this to reveal the shiny black canes. You can use the foliage that you have removed as a mulch to prevent weeds around the base.

Chit your chips

Give your spuds a head start before planting by placing your seed potatoes in a brightly lit, frost free place where they will start to develop knobbly greeny/purple shoots or ‘chit’ like they do when they are left in your cupboard for too long! Chitting is recommended for first and second earlies, as it will bring your harvest forward by a couple of weeks. I find an old egg box the perfect vessel for the seed potatoes to start off, they will grow away fast when they are planted out in 4-8 weeks.