The plants which will need some TLC from you this spring

Once you’ve enjoyed them in all their glory, you'll be hooked. But remember, you don’t need acres of woodland to get the stress-busting, feel-good benefits of flowers.

The smaller species are ideal in rock gardens or containers and they’re a great way of bringing colour and life to areas under trees.

Helleborus x ballardiae ‘December Dawn’ flowers from mid-winter to early spring. Blooms are beautiful, white, flushed pink inside.

Helleborus cyclophyllus produces rather intriguing, yellowish-green flowers, which look wonderfully out of the ordinary.

Helleborus x hybridus ‘Peggy Ballard’ is a true star of the hellebore family. The flowers are a deep reddish pink, with veined, purple-pink on the inside.

The family favourite, the Christmas rose, Helleborus niger, is the classic hellebore. It bears white flowers, which are in some cases strongly pink-flushed with greenish-white centres. ‘Potter’s Wheel’ is an especially lovely variety, bearing pure white flowers with delicate green “eyes”.

Moist, fertile, soil with a good crumbly structure is perfect (dig in plenty of compost, if necessary).

Exact requirements vary depending on species and situation, but dry or waterlogged soils must be avoided and plants need to be sheltered from strong or cold winds. Hellebores are easy to maintain – simply apply a leaf mould or organic mulch in autumn.

Appreciate their beauty in any way you can and see for yourself just how special hellebores really are. Just a word of warning – they are poisonous.

Pansies

Early spring isn’t normally the month for dead-heading flowering plants because there aren’t that many flowering plants to deadhead.

But it’s important - pansies, primulas, primroses and many winter/spring bedding plants need dead-heading to prevent them setting seed which, in turn, discourages them from throwing out new blooms.

Some people turn up their noses at pansies – they consider them old-fashioned. But pansies still maintain their appeal among gardeners who value a tried-and-tested – and dependable – colourful flower for times when little else is in bloom.

The Victorians loved them and bred lots of new varieties with ‘faces’ and fantastic hues.

The winter-flowering forms start to bloom in autumn and can put up with most of what the English climate can throw at them. It’s possible to sow the tiny seeds in late spring to get decent-sized plants for the autumn, but it’s far easier to buy ready-germinated plants.

‘Floral Dance’ is still one of the biggest sellers, but the beauty of pansies is that there are always new varieties appearing.

And if you fall in love with the winter bloomers, you’ll adore those which can be used for summer bedding or to fill window-boxes. The large-flowered group include such favourites as ‘Jumbo’ and ‘Sunny Boy’, and, again, they come in a multitude of colours.

All they ask of the gardener is a decent soil and a sunny spot. Water them in dry times and dead-head regularly and you’ll have months of in-your-face colour for only a modicum of effort.

And if you are confused about the difference between pansies and violas, don’t be. Violas tend to be a bit smaller and come in single colours, but they can be just as attractive as their bigger, more blowsy cousins.

Cyclamen

Indoor cyclamen can flower for months, but without the right sort of care and attention they will eventually begin to wilt, their blooms becoming fewer and fewer.

Indoor varieties don’t like temperatures below 40degF, so don’t get them confused with outdoor varieties which are cold-weather classics and which have helped to brighten up these last few months.

Originally, cyclamen hail from the mountain regions of the Mediterranean but now they’re quite at home in the UK. Thanks to modern achievements in growing, plants come in mini, midi and maxi sizes and an array of colours from magenta and red, to pink, white and violet.

Cyclamen normally bloom from early September to the end of February, and then they go into a dormant state to recover from their exertions.

To prolong the indoor flowering period, remove wilted blooms and leaves to make room for new foliage and flowers and prevent the dying stems rotting the rest of the plant.

But by encouraging them to bloom year-round, you could exhaust them – and this is what happens to the majority of cyclamen. To prevent such a disaster, stop watering and feeding, let the compost almost dry out, and give the plans a well-earned rest for a few weeks by popping them into a cool, shady spot.

Then re-start growth. Repot using fresh compost and start watering again. New growth should appear, and the life cycle begins again. With watering and feeding, less is more. If the soil is too wet, the flat bulb-like tuber will start to rot. Don’t pour the water directly onto the compost; pour it into a dish or saucer, and half-an-hour later, pour away any water which is still left in the dish.

Feed them every week while they are in bloom, and cyclamen will repay you with lots of flowers, so dead-heading is important.