According to past statistics February is often colder than January. This winter so far has been very mild, especially when compared with 2010/11, so a cold snap this month would actually go some way to evening things up a bit. The fantastic flowering and fruiting last year demonstrated that plants perform best with a hard winter and warm spring. I’m worried that if we do not have a spell of sub-zero temperatures then pests and diseases will get the upper hand in 2012 and plants won’t have had a decent period of winter rest to gear up for brilliant blooming.

Remember the very early and steep dive into winter which occurred last year? I’ve taken extra precautions this year, starting by adding extra bubble-wrap insulation in the greenhouse which is easily fixed with plastic clips against the aluminium framework.

It seems like a pretty standard descent into winter so far. It’s easy to forget that the newly bare stems will remain that way for almost six months because it is well into May before the leaf canopy is fully reinstated. A lot of weather can happen between now and then – remember the ‘big freeze’ last winter – so invest in some horticultural fleece and keep it on standby.

November is one of those months when gardening activity is largely dictated by the whims of the weather. In a ‘normal’ year it is the final chance for those activities which depend on the last vestiges of warmth and active root growth - such as moving trees, shrubs, herbaceous perennials and the like. It is also the first chance to start those tasks which rely on the lack of plant growth and the onset of winter dormancy; pruning of roses, planting bare root stock, digging fallow soil.

I finished working for the BBC early this year because I made programmes featuring the ‘RHS’ flower shows and did not work, as I have in previous years, on Gardeners’ World. This has meant that, apart from a month’s return to Birmingham covering for a friend on sick leave, I’ve actually become ‘self-unemployed’ earlier than ever. In theory I should therefore have an immaculate garden and be well ahead on all maintenance issues – err, ‘No’!

hedge trimming so it’s a good place to start this one. In a perfect world I’d have been cutting my various hedges, a section at a time, when the mood took me but, as ever, I’ve let them get away from me. I always have a mad panic this month as the mixed hedges need taking in hand at exactly the same time as the yew gets its annual cut. It’s difficult to know what to do with all the trimmings. Short, soft, foliage can be composted but the larger, woodier, material needs to be fed through a shredder before adding to the heap. I generate so many clippings that the only practical method of dealing with it is a big bonfire – rather than burning precious fossil fuel driving down to the ‘recycling centre’ (formerly Bridport tip) and adding it to the green waste.

We seem to be having a pretty fair summer this year (sorry if, by the time you read this, rains of biblical proportions have returned!) and the hard winter seems to have promoted really good flowering. Recent prolonged sunny weather, followed by a good dose of wind and rain, may have caused herbaceous plants to flop unless well staked. I didn’t get around to staking everything earlier this year, when it would have been easy to do, so now I am forced to do a bit of emergency intervention. It’s not ideal, and the big old herbaceous lumps do appear ‘trussed up’, but that’s the price to pay for not doing things in a timely fashion.

Time to take stock; what have you got planned for your garden this month? Yew hedges should have had their annual cut by now; summer borders tidied but not necessarily cut back to nothing (this can wait until spring); too early for blanket mulching; too late for taking cuttings from tender perennials; too late for applying herbicides – what can you do?

The last gasp of summer or the first breath of autumn? September keeps you guessing as so much depends on the weather and how benign it turns out to be. Of course the legendary, and these days almost mythical, ‘Indian Summer’ can make this month a real bonus.

Oh dear! I really shouldn’t have tempted fate, last month, by suggesting that July might actually be warm and sunny; cue Biblical deluge. It has meant that I’ve saved loads of time in not having to water my remaining containers so often and everything in the ground has romped away.

The garden show season continues; Last month I was at the ‘Gardeners’ World Live’ show at the NEC in Birmingham. I hadn’t set foot in the place since I’d last filmed there in 1995. To begin with the scale of the thing was really off-putting and my natural reluctance to treat gardening as a retail experience stopped me from buying anything.

The great thing about writing these articles at the last minute is that it gives me the chance to be a little bit topical. I was at the ‘RHS Chelsea Flower Show’ yesterday and, apart from a surreal moment when I introduced myself to Will Young, the highlight was, as always, the nursery exhibits in the marquee.

Recently I met a young head gardener fresh from completing his ‘Kew Diploma’, possibly the most respected horticultural qualification in the country. His enthusiasm and vigour made me wish that I had a set of gardening jump leads to attach to his green fingers to recharge my own plant growing batteries!