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A: Leaving stumps shields the crown from feet and weather. But stumps can choke shoots and foster pests and diseases. If you cut down now, stumps may be a useful aide-mémoire. If you cut down in March then you might as well cut right down for a clean start.

Q: I was given a pot of melianthus major last spring, and it has thrived in a border. All summer there were several stems of fresh grey foliage. Now it is looking shabby. What should I do? — Mrs M. Gill, Devizes, Wiltshire

A: The foliage of melianthus gets shabbier as winter progresses, with its feathery grey-green leaves dropping and turning grey with each frost. In milder climates the stems come through the winter to produce rather evil-looking spikes of red-brown flowers in the spring. More commonly the stems have failed by spring, and that is the time to cut them down to regrow. If you cut them now, the new growth you provoke may be frosted later. Be patient.

Q: My wife likes to bring flowering stems of sarcococca indoors in winter, for their scent. But we argue about how best to pick the stems. Should we be picking side-branches or whole stems down to the base? — D. and R. Simpson, Aylesbury

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A: The beauty of a clump of glossy sarcococca is its density, like a little grove of glossy evergreen bamboo. Naturally enough, most of the flower is held on the top and sides of the clumps, where the sun reaches, and so you might want to pick these side-branches full of flower. However, it is no bad idea to cut out the occasional stem at ground level, taking out some of the older wood and maintaining a little more youth and air in the clump.

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