* Test your soil to see whether the pH needs adjusting, so you can take action before the main growing season.

* Continue to refirm any young plants lifted by frost.

* Order young bedding plants and summer-flowering bulbs, corms or tubers.

* Continue to put cloches in position to warm the soil for early sowings of vegetables in March. They need to be in place for at least three weeks for the soil to benefit.

* Sow quick-growing perennials such as campanulas and poppies to flower this year.

* Keep beds clear of weeds. Groundsel and chickweed in particular should be removed from around growing chrysanthemums as they are host plants for the chrysanthemum eelworm.

* Take cuttings from dahlia tubers.

* Weather permitting, take hardwood cuttings of hardy climbers now to save time later in the spring.

* Prune old canes of autumn raspberries down to the ground as soon as new growth appears.

* Transfer fuchsia cuttings taken in the autumn into 5cm (2in) pots.

* Sow parsley in pots indoors or outdoors under glass, sieving a light covering of compost over the seeds.