Winter container watch

One of her patio containers gives Ruth a nasty shock

- Ruth Hayes

LAST month I was playing with my pots, deadheading, weeding and moving them to a sheltered location at the side of the house because bad weather was forecast, when I noticed that the plants in one of them weren’t doing very well.

I reached out and slightly moved a sad-looking cyclamen and the whole thing lifted from the soil.

Vine weevils had eaten their way through the roots, and digging around in the compost I soon found a few of the dastardly grubs, immediately recognisable from their creamy, C-shaped bodies and brown heads.