• Manure any soil available for plants which will grow in slightly acid conditions.
• Soil manured in autumn can now be limed.
• Water Christmas trees daily, a six foot tree can drink up to a pint of water a day.
  

Lawns

• Repair lawns with turf taken from the edge of borders.
  

Containers

Ponds

• Break ice which forms to help get oxygen into the water and allow birds to bathes.

Annuals and biennials

• Begin growing sweet peas in a cold frame.
  

Perennials

• Soak any shrivelled dahlia corms and dust with sulphur to prevent fungal infection.
• Sow alpines or tree seeds that require a period of frost to germinate.
  

Roses

• Complete winter pruning.

• December is the ideal time to be planting bare-root deciduous hedging plants like beech and hornbeam. They'll quietly establish over the winter months, they're unlikely to need much watering until spring.
• Take hardwood cuttings from your favourite shrubs and bring on in a cold greenhouse.
• Winter-prune standard trees.
• If the soil is frozen, don't attempt to plant. Your plants will be safe in their packaging for a week or so.

Vegetables

• Double-dig vegetable plots and manure to encourage deep root growth next season.
• Don't worry about breaking up any large lumps of soil… the frost and rain will break them up.

Herbs

• Juniper; the seeds can still be planted.
  

• Wash greenhouse glass, and ventilate well, with extra heat, afterwards.

• Winter prune apple, pear and quince trees, burning any cankerous wood.
• Check stored fruit for rotting or damage.