January, north of the equator

January is the quietest month in the garden and the most dangerous one indoors, which is a strange pairing until you look at what is happening to the light. Outdoors almost nothing is growing, so almost nothing can go wrong. Indoors the days are at their shortest, the heating is on, and a plant that took a weekly drink happily in July is now sitting in cold wet compost for days on end.

In the garden

This is the bare root month. Trees, shrubs, roses, hedging, fruit bushes, raspberry canes and rhubarb crowns are all lifted while they are asleep and sold without soil, which makes them cheaper, lighter and easier to establish than the same plant in a pot. The window runs from about November to March and the only rule is the state of the ground: not frozen, not sodden. If you cannot plant the day it arrives, heel the roots into a spare patch of soil and come back when the weather turns.

Prune while you can see the shape. Apples and pears are pruned now, in the dormant season, and so are the autumn fruiting raspberries, which are cut right down to the ground. Wisteria gets its winter shortening. Leave the spring flowering shrubs alone, because their buds are already made.

Sow sweet peas in deep pots in a cold frame if you missed the autumn sowing, and start geraniums from seed on a warm windowsill, because they need every week they can get. Chit seed potatoes in a cool light room towards the end of the month. Otherwise, read the catalogues and order.

In the house

Water far less than you think. The interval that suited a plant in summer can easily double by midwinter, and the log on this site slides between the two on a curve rather than in a jump, because that is how the plant experiences it. Feel the compost before you reach for the can.

Move the plants nearer the glass, and clean the glass. A metre back from a north window in January is close to darkness as far as a monstera is concerned. Turn the pots a quarter each week or everything leans.

Keep the leaves away from the radiator and away from the cold pane. The two commonest January injuries are crisped edges from dry heat and brown patches from foliage touching frozen glass overnight.

What not to do yet

Do not repot. A plant with no roots growing cannot fill fresh compost, and wet unused compost is where root rot starts. Wait until the light comes back in March. Do not feed either, unless something is genuinely in growth on a bright windowsill.