I’ve Spent My Career Working in Famous Gardens – This is the One Thing Pro Gardeners Never Skip in January

A garden border full of flowering shrubs and perennials with a green hedge in the background at Walnut Cottage Garden.

Many different jobs can be done in the garden in January, but potentially the most important one doesn’t require any pruning tools or even for you to touch the soil. It is to plan the season, a vital task that gets you fully prepared even before the first seed goes in.

I spent many years working in large public gardens, including the world-famous Hidcote Manor Garden, and ran a productive walled kitchen garden for a Michelin-star restaurant. I always took time at the start of the year to meticulously plan the season. This included mapping beds, ordering seeds, making sowing plans, and more.