e-mail Jane Owen with your gardening questions: jane.owen1@timesonline.co.uk

We have followed your advice about city gardens by ordering paving to cover our struggling lawn. However my daughter says this is harmful to the environment because the paving will not allow natural drainage. Is this so? Janet Howe, Birmingham

Best way round this is to use gavel or pebbles in the joints rather than cement. Better still you can add soil to the joints and plant them with thyme, mind-your-own-business, thrift or whatever. If you’re really worried about the drainage issue, Astroturf might be a better option than paving.

WE are planning a drought-tolerant border after our first attempt at the border ended up with a lot of dead plants. Suggestions please. The soil is dry and the bed measures 3 metres by just over 1 and it is in full sun against a wall.Phil Jones, Saffron Waldon

You’re in a particularly dry part of the country. It’s worth taking a trip to Hyde Hall gardens and Beth Chatto’s garden both of which specialise in drought-tolerant planting. A lot of grasses do well in this position but if, like me, you don’t rate grasses, how about the following? Artemisia, lavender, rosemary and various other herbs, broom, tulips, Teucrium, mallow, yucca, cistus, Achillea, giant thistle, cosmos, nasturtium, alyssum, various iris (really worth majoring on iris for a lush look), dianthus, and plenty of stunning sedums and sempervivums PLUS how about adding in an Opuntia? This is the prickly pear, the Cowboy-style cactus which can take surprisingly low temperatures so long as it is planted in well drained soil.

We have a peach on south-facing wall which seems to have started making buds. But I think this cold snap may have hurt them – is there anything I can do? Sally Gordon, Clapham

So long as the buds hadn’t started to open they’re probably OK. If we get more cold weather it might be worth giving them some night-time protection. I’ve sometimes just thrown a blanket over vulnerable plants when I’ve run out of horticultural fleece but it’s better to do this over a frame of some kind, however makeshift. Newspaper is another great insulator so long as it doesn’t get damp.

A couple of years ago my mother gave me a basket of cape primroses. They flowered well last year but this year the flowering has been down by about fifty percent. They look OK apart from that. Do I need to change the soil?Saskia Tomkins, London

Changing the soil is probably a good idea and they need to be given a high potash feed every couple of weeks while they’re in flower. They may also benefit from being divided when they go over. Use a sharp knife and take divisions with roots and leaf – some plants will give you more than two divisions depending on the size of the original plant. Pot up the cuttings in small containers filed with general purpose compost, water well and feed every week. With a bit of luck you’ll be able to give a friend a basket of Cape Primroses this Christmas as well as having your own display.

We are having a major extension built and completely renovating our one-acre garden. We want to have our own water supply (we plan a lush English garden with a lovely lawn) but do not want to have hundreds of unsightly water butts around the place. Are water tanks an option and will this mean we don’t have to adhere to hose pipe bans? Also do you know any tanks which look presentable? Name and address withheld

You can now buy underground water storage tanks which can be fed directly by rainwater from your roof. You’ll need to install a pump to retrieve the water but it will be worth it because you’ll be able to water your garden with hoses for as long as your own water supply lasts, without fear of prosecution. You’ll find lots of water tank sites online but here are a couple to give you an idea of the range of tanks on offer: www.conderproducts.com and www.water-tanks.net

My hydrangeas look bedraggled at this time of year but my husband insists they can’t be pruned until March. Is this true? Name and address withheld

Sometimes they need to be left later than March because, on most hydrangeas, the dead flowerheads gives frost protection to the emerging buds (which you must be careful not to harm when you finally dead head the plants.)

Our garden is least colourful around now because we used to spend winters in the sun. Now we will spend most of the year in this country we want to improve the look of the garden through winter. We have good soil and the garden looks its best in May through to October. It measures about half an acre. Winston Marley, Sussex

Hellebores look beautiful at this time of the year and, once settled, they will breed and spread. Here are some more suggestions: snowdrops; winter aconites; the brightly coloured stems of certain dogwoods and willows (they have to be cut right back every year to ensure good stem colour the following year); winter honeysuckle (a shrub), sarcococca and various viburnums and Daphnes for scent; universal pansies; primulas; the wonderful Paulownia tree which produces purple foxglove-like flowers; plenty of small iris and magnolias. I defy you not to have a stunning winter garden in a couple of year’s time!

I planted out two pots full of primulas from my local garden centre. They were put into fresh multi purpose compost in December and they did OK to start with but now they are drooping even when I water them (this started happening before this week’s bad frost). Carole Darling, Dorking

This may be the result of vine weevil getting at the roots although I am a little surprised given that you used new compost etc. Were the pots well cleaned? I think that your best way forward is to gently dig out one of the plants and see if you can spot one of the grey-white vine weevil monsters chewing at the roots. If so I’d be inclined to take the primulas back to the garden centre on the grounds that the plants MIGHT already have been infected. It’s worth a try anyway.

e-mail Jane Owen with your gardening questions: jane.owen1@timesonline.co.uk

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