IS it possible for me to write this without mentioning the weather? I thought not.

Yes, the weather has been capricious but before we get ourselves all stressed out about it remember that this is Britain in early April and that we have had this sort of thing many times before.

I remember snow covered Easters more than once so take a deep breath and relax – it will pass.

What it does tell us again is that there is often no set time to do particular jobs in the garden and we should watch the weather and act accordingly.

There are things that you can do when the weather is bad such as protecting plants in the garden that you know are vulnerable.

This could be things that have been planted recently such as bedding or evergreens that can be covered with some horticultural fleece.

Try to keep the fleece off the smaller plants with sticks, for example, as it will work better and damage them less.

Remember to weight the edges down with bricks or tuck the edges into the soil.

This will cut the often damaging effect of the wind which can burn evergreens by desiccating them and cause them to go brown.

This is often misattributed to low temperatures.

I would also be tempted to throw a fleece over early flowerers such as camellias assuming that the plant is small enough to do this easily.

It only takes a minute and will save all those open and half open flowers you have waited all winter to see.

If the damage has been done already don’t be in too much of a hurry to start pruning them back as quite often when it warms up they will sprout even from what appear to be badly damaged shoots.

Also if you start cutting dead ends off too early – before the new shoots have properly broken in to leaf – then all you will do is encourage the dieback to work its way further down the stem causing more damage.

A classic example of this are the Japanese maples where winter dieback is common even after a mild winter.

There are plants that you can cut back now if the pruning fever is on you such as buddlejas, lavateras and hebes.

You can of course do your roses now too.

When spring finally arrives properly there will be plenty to keep us busy in the garden.

n For more from Bents visit bents.co.uk