an expert answers your top gardening questions

Is there a right time of year to start a garden? Any time except the peak of summer – obviously it’s extremely hot then, and your plants will just wilt and shrivel up. A lot of gardeners say either spring or autumn is the ideal time, because that’s peak growing season.

What can you – or should you – do for your garden during winter? Winter is a great time for any projects that work up a big sweat – building things, creating things, moving them around. It’s also a great time to transplant or plant bare-rooted plants… or plant things in general, as long as the soil’s not super cold and you’re not dealing with heavy frosts. Many plants are dormant during this time, so it helps to reduce transplant shock, and helps them settle in ready for the coming spring growth.

What’s the difference between an annual and a perennial? It sounds like one lasts for only a year and the other lasts forever – is that right? Yes, basically, but it’s not entirely true. An annual plant is one that tends to grow flowers and set seed all within a twelve-month period. After that, it dies. Those seeds are meant to land in the ground and start the cycle all over again. But plants behave differently in different climates – in Sydney and further north, plants that are considered annuals in colder parts of Australia quite often don’t die off in winter.

Perennials are plants that just keep on going – if it produces seeds in its cycle, it doesn’t die off. There are different types of perennials – you’ve got things like herbaceous perennials that include plants like hellebores and dahlia, and these come and go. They wake up for a certain number of months of the year and then go to sleep beneath the ground.

What do I need to know about pruning? It’s best to prune a plant after it’s flowered – how hard you prune is really personal preference. If you’re trying to shape something or shrink it down to size, or if it’s got a bad disease and is suffering on the outer leaves, then give it a really hard cutback. Sometimes things can tolerate a 50 per cent cutback and bounce back chirpier than they were before. Most plants will benefit from some sort of prune, even if it’s just a tip prune – it encourages new growth and a new flush of flowers and foliage. Some plants only require a once-a-year quick haircut and you’re done.

Should you take dead flowers off your plants? Unless you’re encouraging the plant to produce seeds, yes. With something like a rose, which only has a few flowers, you can snip off one dead rose flower at a time. But with something like a lavender or catmint that’s smothered in flowers, you’d be there forever if you snipped off each individual one. Just get some hedging shears and give it a good trim.

How do I know what soil my garden has? My favourite way to get people to understand their soil is for them to get down and feel it. Usually, they garden with gloves, so they’re not actually touching the soil. When you run your soil through your fingers and push your fingers against it, does it feel like sand at the beach or slimy like you’re playing with clay on a potter’s wheel? Those are obviously the two extremes, but most soils are somewhere in between. You get an idea if you imagine the big and small particles, with the big ones being the sand and the small the clay. You also need to observe your soil – if you dig a hole for a fresh plant and fill it with water, and that water drains away after 30 seconds it’s a sandy, free-draining soil, whereas if it’s still there eight hours later, it’s a heavy clay soil.

Is there an easy way to fix a soil that’s not very good? Organic matter is king for any type of soil that’s not good. Things like green manure are not appropriate for balconies and courtyards, but using plenty of compost, organic fertilisers, organic-based liquid fertilisers and things like bokashi bin waste, worm castings and even leaf mould will improve both a clay and sandy soil. Leaf mould is made by creating a wire cage and stuffing it full of autumn leaves that have gone brown. It’s a lot slower than standard compost, but eventually those leaves will break down in the way they would on a forest floor – there’ll be the beautiful soft fluffy leaves on top and underneath them is like black gold.

What’s the difference between compost and mulch? Some people swear by using compost as mulch, but I think that’s a bit of a waste. It’s full of microbes, full of beneficials, often full of worms, which don’t want to be on the surface; they want to be in the soil. Compost is often finer than mulch – with mulch, which is used to keep soil and plant roots cool, we often prefer something that’s a bit chunkier like wood chip or straw, because it breaks down slower. You can think of compost as food and energy, whereas mulch is a blanket.

Is liquid seaweed a fertiliser? No, it’s a plant tonic. If you’re only feeding your plants pure seaweed, you’re literally asking them to live on energy drinks. It’s great for plants that have gone through transplant shock or ones that are sick or trying to overcome stressful situations – they might be droopy and sad in summer, or have just been attacked by slugs and snails. Otherwise, you need to use something that says it’s a complete fertiliser – it will have a breakdown on the side of the packet that explains its nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium content and lists all the micronutrients in it.

To find out more about Chloe Thomson, and to check out her online gardening course, Sprout School, visit beantheredugthat.com

This is an edited extract from our one-off gardening mag, Evergreen. To read the rest of the story and to hear more helpful tips from gardening pros, get your mitts on a copy by swinging past the frankie shop or visiting one of our lovely stockists.