Gardening: Brian Kidd's jobs for the coming week

Plan ahead for this Christmas. Grow your own holly and mistletoe.
Cyclamen like a cool room in a light, but not warm, spot.Cyclamen like a cool room in a light, but not warm, spot.
Cyclamen like a cool room in a light, but not warm, spot.

• Keep an eye on those lovely plants you were given for Christmas. If the room is always warm, the plants will need more water than those in a cold room. To be sure, push fingers into the top of the pot’s compost and water when it feels dry. Cyclamen prefer a cool room with plenty of light but not in a sunny window. If leaves on poinsettia are yellow at the bottom of the plant, they are being over-watered.

• Holly seeds can be sown now. Squeeze the berries on to a postcard or piece of cardboard. After a week, the seeds can be picked out of the squashed flesh and sown in a seed tray of seed compost. They need no heat, simply put them outdoors somewhere out of the way of cats. If kept moist, the seeds will germinate in April. If you don’t want to sow the seeds, push the stems of the holly used for winter decoration into the soil in a border and the blackbirds will soon eat them. Sprigs of holly keep cats off borders too.

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• Save seeds of mistletoe. Simply squash the berries on to apple, malus or lime trees. The less fuss the better, then they should germinate.

• Try to get on with digging and manuring where potatoes, peas and beans will be planted.

• Make a note of the additional minutes of light we are now experiencing. Put a note in your gardening diary of plants which are looking good. It will be good to read what happened when in a few years.

• Sow exhibition onions from seed in a propagator in the greenhouse. Onion seeds sown now are far less likely to go to seed quickly in early summer.

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• To keep the little ones occupied, get them to jot down the names of birds visiting the garden. If there are none, buy wild bird food and you will be amazed how quickly they arrive to feed. Soak bread in water and put this in the centre of the garden so the birds have a chance to fly away from cats and PLEASE don’t throw bread into the road. Cars also kill birds.

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