Events in November:

- Pruning and Planting Fruit Trees - 3 November 2007, Reaseheath College, Cheshire. Details

- A Winter Walk on the Wild Side - 6 November RHS Garden Hyde Hall, Essex. Details

- Winter Fruit Pruning - 10 November 2007, Capel Manor College, London. Details

51 glorious garden websites

Times Online's gardening guru opens her address book to share her top pick of gardening websites

Related Internet Links

• A ten step guide for novice gardeners

• The gardening year planner - what to do, when

• Guides for vegetable growers

BACKGROUND

• A gardener's guide to healing herbs and flowers

• Fruit bushes: what to grow and how to get a good crop

• Plant it now: a beginner's guide to snowdrops

• Neil Wormald’s week: a potted guide to growing chillies

• A guide to making a great patio garden

BACKGROUND

• A year in the garden: tasks for every season

• How to start a vegetable garden

• Twenty vegetable catalogues

• Eight great vegetable gardening books

BACKGROUND

• Growing kinds of chilli. . .

• Go ahead, pack it in

• Seeds of change

• Dolce vita on a plate

• Salad days that last forever

BACKGROUND

• Let’s not lose the plots

• A plot on the land

• Seeds of change

• There's life in the allotment

• One potato, two potato...

- Stained Glass Workshop - 24 November 2007, RHS Garden Wisley Hall, Surrey. Details

- Christmas Decorations for Children - 25 November 2007, RHS Garden Hyde Hall, Essex. Details

November's reader queries answered by Stephen Anderton, The Times . Click here to read

Week 1:

What to do this week:

- Start pruning soft-fruit bushes, including gooseberries, whitecurrants and redcurrants

- Protect hardy fuchsias from cold damage by surrounding the bases with a thick mulch

- Lag outdoor taps and water pipes and move hosepipes under cover for the winter

- It is a good time to tidy up: clean spare pots and seed trays to prevent the spread of disease and store them in a shed or garage.

(Neil Wormald, Sunday Times)

Weekend Tips:

- As you cut down spent border plants, remember to put a handful of sand or gravel over the site of clumps of lilies and other bulbs to mark their positions, so you do not damage them when working on the border next spring

- If you are collecting and bagging fallen leaves to make leaf mould, make sure they are wet first or they will not rot. Trying to wet them thoroughly in the bag is impossible. If they are dry, wait for the rain, or spread them out and put a can of water over them

- Keep an eye on weed seedlings. Foxgloves will be coming up like mad, which is fine. So will hairy bitter cress and grass, which is not

- Move permanently planted containers (box, camellias, bay, etc) to a sheltered place for the winter, ideally with a little overhead cover against a wall. You may need to water them a little if it’s dry and windy for a long period

- Precious or frost-susceptible pots will need to be emptied and stored away, scrubbed-down and dry.

(Stephen Anderton, The Times)

Week 2:

What to do this week:

- Take hardwood cuttings of ribes sanguineum (flowering currant)

- Lift submersible pond pumps out of the water and, after cleaning them, store in a dry and frost-free shed

- Feed garden birds on a regular basis and keep bird baths topped up with fresh water

- Petrol lawn mowers can be sent away for servicing; have the blades sharpened at the same time.

(Neil Wormald, Sunday Times)

Weekend tips:

- Worried about good containers of standard bays or special foliage shrubs standing outdoors all winter? Why not take the plants out of their pots and sink them into the veg patch. They will then not blow over or need watering, or run into premature frost-tender growth as they might against a wall, and you can repot them next spring.

(Stephen Anderton, The Times)

Week 3:

What to do this week:

- Clean all equipment before storing it over the winter

- Start taking root cuttings of herbaceous perennials such as acanthus

- Protect winter crops from bird damage

- Hippeastrum (amaryllis) bulbs can be potted up now and kept in a reasonably warm and well-lit room

- Remove unwanted moss from terraces, steps and paths, as they can become very slippery in wet weather.

(Neil Wormald, Sunday Times)

Weekend Tips:

- Planting bare-rooted trees and shrubs now gives them maximum time to establish before next spring; eg, those bundles of little hedging plants of beech, hornbeam, privet and thorn. Try to complete the job using only the best in the bundle

- Scrupulously clear up and burn the fallen leaves of vines under glass and keep the greenhouse cold and well ventilated for the next couple of months. Prune in a month or so

- Check over suspect fence panels, and if a post is broken at the base get it replaced soon: when one post is broken the fence waggles in the wind and adjacent posts can break, too

- Abutilon vitifolium is a wonderfully generous shrub but not very long-lived. Take a few hardwood cuttings in a pot now.

(Steven Anderton, The Times)

Week 4:

What to do this week:

- Check greenhouse heaters are working properly

- Once completely dormant, prune grapevines grown under cover

- Start ordering seed potatoes for delivery in the new year.

(Neil Wormald, Sunday Times)

Weekend Tips:

Clear ivy from around windows and cut back any loose stems on more aristocratic self-clinging climbers ­ such as Hydrangea petiolaris, Pileostegia, Schizophragma and Parthenocissus ­ before the winds can peel them back further

On heavy clay soils and where slugs are a problem, use fine grit as a winter mulch for tender perennials: it will keep the crowns drier than bark or compost would, and next spring it can usefully be worked into the surrounding soil

The fruits of the golden hop have now disintegrated, or at least outlived their attraction. Disentangle the stems from their host and cut them down to a few inches.

(Stephen Anderton, The Times)

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