Gardening expert reveals top tips on ‘biosecurity’ to keep your garden healthy amid growing concern of diseases

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SAVE! PROTECT your knees with these Spear & Jackson Kew Gardens knee pads, left, £14.95, Amazon. Or try The Range’s Teal pads by My Garden, right, almost £9 cheaper at £5.99.

WIN! BAG one of FIVE sets of family tickets to one of the RHS Gardens in England – Bridgewater, Wisley, Hyde Hall, Rosemoor or Harlow Carr. For a chance to win, visit thesun.co.uk/RHSGARDEN, or write to RHS Garden Competition, PO Box 3190, Colchester, Essex, CO2 8GP. Include your name, age and email or phone.
UK residents 18+ only. Entries close 11.59pm on January 31, 2026. T&Cs apply.

LEARN! Q) MY 25ft olive tree had no olives last year. Maybe I shaped it at the wrong time. When should I trim it?
Harvey Osborne, via email

A) For a big prune, late February onward is best, when the weather has started to warm up a bit but the tree is still dormant. For light pruning and reshaping, early spring onwards. Try to open it up a bit to improve airflow.

JOB OF THE WEEK! ADD mulch to soil. If you have a coldframe, think about sowing broadbeans and peas. It’s a great time for sweet peas and preparing seed beds.

PLANT OF THE WEEK! EVERGREEN Euonymus japonicus Bravo cheers up a shady spot. There’s 20% off at thompson-morgan.com/sunoffers.

GROUND FORCE! HAVE you ever forced your rhubarb? No, it’s not an innuendo – it’s a way of making it sweeter, tastier and grow quicker.

If your variety starts growing in early spring, such as Victoria, place buckets over emerging stems and bank straw up around it to block light.

The rhubarb thinks it’s underground – forcing it to seek out the light.

This makes the stems paler, longer and sweeter.
It also means it will be ready months earlier.

TAKE your kids to a Dobbies Garden Centre on Februay 1 for its FREE Little Seedlings Club. They will learn the ways to compost. See dobbies.com/events.