March can be a tricky month – some race weeks are warm enough for short sleeves and sitting outside, but on the other hand there have been Gold Cup days where there has been snow fall! Either way Cheltenham will be looking at its best with all the daffodils nodding their heads on the verges and roundabouts, and in your gardens the bulbs will be nosing their way through the ground – crocus, scillas, daffodils and many others.

The garden is springing into life once more. If you forgot to plant more bulbs in the autumn you can always pop in some pots from the garden centre. I tend to keep them in their pots, burying them in the soil. Then, when they have flowered, take them out of the pots and plant them properly at the right depth (twice to three times the height of the bulb) with a little bonemeal, as they tend to be planted very shallowly in their pots.

Now is also the time to hard prune the stems of willows and dogwoods that have been wonderful and bright during the winter with their fiery reds and yellows. Species grown for their colourful stems include Cornus alba, C. sanguinea and C. sericea (all dogwoods), and the willows (salix) include Salix alba and

S. irrorata.

Cut back to two to three buds from the base of the shrub. This very old technique is called ‘coppicing’ or ‘stooling’ and will provide lots of fresh new shoots and colour for the next winter. This can be done every year, or every two years depending on how you want the shrub to grow.

Winter flowering heathers look better for an annual pruning to keep the plants compact and bushy. Books recommend using secateurs, but if there is a large area of heathers it is easier to use shears. Don’t cut into the old wood but just prune off nearly all of the previous seasons growth.

If you haven’t grown vegetables before, start small. Things for beginners to grow would be runner beans, courgettes, cherry tomatoes, and cut and come again lettuces. Either order your seeds online or buy in garden centres.

Share a packet with friends – especially courgette and tomato seeds – as you don’t need to plant many. Two courgette plants will probably suffice, 6-8 runner beans and sow the lettuce in very short rows every couple of weeks so they don’t all come at once. Follow the instructions on the packets and fingers crossed you could be tucking into your home grown veg in a few weeks!