Camellias are one of the most outstanding winter-flowering plants. They're available in a range of colours, flower forms, and plant habits, and options to suit sunny or shaded positions. If your camellia has lots of buds in a cluster, remove all but one to produce a bigger, more perfectly shaped bloom. This is called disbudding.
Add compost and a handful of pelletised chook poo to planting holes for newly purchased deciduous trees, shrubs and roses. Dig to mix in well before planting. Water regularly to help fresh feeder roots establish.
Make winter sweet with fragrant plants such as daphne, wintersweet (Chimonanthus), winter honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima) sweet osmanthus, pink luculia, Buddleja ‘Spring Promise’, viburnum and pretty violets.
Sharpen and clean secateurs and loppers ready for pruning roses and tidying trees and shrubs next month.
Divide perennials, including shasta daisy, Easter daisy, pokers, salvia, penstemon and echinacea, every second winter to maintain vigour and to propagate new plants. Lift plants gently with a garden fork. Wash off soil and split the root system. Promptly plant divisions and water well.
Prune the flowered stems of hydrangea back to a pair of plump healthy buds. Leave any canes that didn’t flower this year as these will bloom in summer.
Control snails and slugs before they devour emerging bulbs and flower seedlings. Use beer traps or organic, pet-safe baits, or collect snails at night or in the early morning and feed them to the chooks.