- On clammy nights after rain, certain people go out into their gardens armed with a torch and a half-brick, to slaughter snails. Gardeners. You, perhaps? Maybe you’d prefer to use chemical or biological controls, but snails are always harder to defeat than slugs this way.

- If you feed your lawn or it’s looking yellow, now’s the time to spread fertiliser. Do it evenly, with a spreader if you have one; casually flung handfuls so often lead to overdosed patches that burn. It’s the efficient time to apply selective weedkillers, too.

- Tuck in soft clematis shoots behind their supports and let less rampant species ramble prettily into vigorous shrubs.

- Cut off the spent flowers and shabby foliage from pulmonarias, bergenias and brunnera. If pulmonaria foliage is mildewed, cut the lot off; it will soon regrow.

Readers’ queries

I have a paved garden with several 4ft x 4ft areas for planting. I would like to make one a central focal point with year-round colour and interest. The plant should be less than 30in high to avoid impeding the view.

Mrs C. Whiteland, Bromley

Can anything only 30in high be a focus? Could you not grow something tall and narrow instead – an upright juniper with spring and autumn bulbs around the base, or a clump of an arching, golden grass such as Stipa gigantea? Or you could make a focus with colourful seasonal flowers in a container. Tulips, wallflowers, cannas, trailing verbena… I worry that a 30in evergreen might just be a blob.

I’m looking for patio pot plants to screen our neighbours’ gardens on either side. They must be at least 7ft in height. I did consider bamboos, two for either side, but was advised that they shed their leaves. Ideally I am looking for something that retains its leaves. 

Mr A. Loftus, London

An easier option might be to put up trellis above the fence and grow a climber into it – ivy maybe, or the evergreen climbing Hydrangea seemannii, or Pileostegia. Bear in mind that all evergreens drop leaves and make some mess in summer – hollies, bay, laurels, even cypresses in a smaller way, and of course bamboos, whose leaves do rather drift around.

But perhaps you need to use pots because there is no bed to plant in? Then you could plant standard bays or (in London) olives, but they would be very expensive at that size.

In your position I’d stick with bamboo and deal with the leaves, then you would have cover from the ground up, not just at the top. If you thin out the older stems regularly, there will be less fall-out anyway. A bigger problem might be their leaning down in rain; you might want to tie them back to the fence. Top-heavy bays would need an anchorage against the wind, too. Use big, wide-based, weighty containers. n

stephen.anderton@thetimes.co.uk

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