- Remember to have foliage plants as well as flowers when you are choosing plants for summer pots. Melianthus, fatsia, hostas… You could slice a chunk off a clump of your own hostas now and pot it up.

- Get potted agapanthus out in the full sun now, in a sheltered spot, so the developing leaves do not become floppy.

- Bedding plants and baskets need to be gradually acclimatised to the great outdoors, or they can wilt and scorch, or their growth can be checked. Stand them out first on a still, preferably dull day to get them used to the idea. It’s worth it.

- Now is the time to move or divide ferns, just as the fronds begin to unscroll. Water well first and cut off all the old fronds. Single-crown plants will not divide; from multiple crowns, cut away subsidiary crowns using a knife, getting as much root as you can.

Readers’ queries

We bought a fledgling monkey puzzle tree 2 years ago, now 1m tall and in a large pot. We plan to relocate within the next 2 years and want to take it with us. Should we keep it in a pot or plant it in the garden and uproot it when we move?

Mrs. F. Ojutiku, Edgware

I’d keep it in a pot. You can bet your life that, if you put it in the ground, the perfect house will suddenly come up and it will be the wrong time – summer – to dig it up. That said, you will need to pot it on slightly every spring until then and, when you do it, snip back any roots spiralling round the pot. Be careful: it’s all too easy to kill potted monkey puzzles by overwatering. Keep it somewhere on the cool side, too – a bit of high-altitude cloud forest, if you have it, or failing that, somewhere that its roots in particular can be in shade.

I am so glad you like this poor abused tree, but when you choose its new home, let it be in full sun but also between companion planting, not on its own like a clothes dryer. Leeds City Council has planted thick groves of monkey puzzles on some of its roundabouts – amazing, and so much more striking than that bedding or desperately PC grasses-and-perennials.

I have had a camellia for about eight years, but the buds drop before opening. The bush is about 1m tall by 1m wide and the leaves have a good appearance. I apply sequestered iron once a year. The plant faces west with a lattice fence behind. Our neighbour has a larger version in a similar position that flowers every year without fail, and is doing so at the moment. Is there anything I can do?

Mr E. Price, Llandrindod Wells

Drives you mad, doesn’t it? Bud drop is caused by stress in the form of inadequate water in the late summer.

The damage becomes apparent when the frosts arrive and some or all of the buds drop. Camellias are such smart, “civilised” plants, which makes them look good in formal situations around walls and buildings – where there is always a rain shadow. They are very shallow-rooted, too, exacerbating the problem. The first line of defence is to get a thick mulch on the roots now; old, coarse garden compost is great and leaf mould is ideal. Even a covering of dead leaves helps.

stephen.anderton@thetimes.co.uk

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