Plant your MIDWINTER GARDEN

As temperatures plunge, make your backyard come to life

- Adam Woodhams

The shortest day of the year (aka the winter solstice) is now behind us, but with plenty of cool days to go it's likely those chilly temperatures are settling around your garden. This is by no means a bad thing. The cold is needed to provide "chill hours" for flowering and fruiting trees so that they can put on their awesome spring displays and set fruit.

A well planned winter garden can be an absolute delight. It's also the perfect time for garden and landscaping projects, and working in the winter sunshine is a wonderful way to warm up on a brisk morning!

Go flower shopping

Here are just a few of the plants you'll find flowering now. They'll be in flower in the nursery so it's a great time to select and buy, even if you hold off planting until the soil warms up a little in early spring.

• The queens of cool, CAMELLIAS, are continuing their beautiful display. By now the sasanqua varieties are tapering off as the japonica varieties, with their larger flowers in a wider range of colours, come into bloom.