This week, Seb Guppy, Priory Farm's plant expert, gives you his tips on how to get kick-started in the garden this January

EATEN a few too many mince pies during the festivities? You don't need to go to the gym to work them off – simply pull on your gardening clothes and head outside with a pair of secateurs and a broom!

For this is the perfect time to prune trees, shrubs and seasonal "die back". If you haven't tucked up vulnerable plants with straw or horticultural fleece, do it now, and use that broom to sweep up fallen leaves so they don't suffocate the grass or block drains. Put them to good use by composting them and then utilising for mulch.

Although January is a bleak time of year, there is still colour to be found. Hellebores (Christmas roses) come into their own.

There are a great many varieties, with exquisite flowers such as pink beauty, winter moonbeam, silver dollar – with its silvery leaves – and the majestic pink orientalis, queen of hearts. Cut the leaves back when the flower buds appear at the base, leaving just one or two, and you will find they respond with fantastic growth as they mature.

Conifers can provide all year-round texture, form and a palette of colour, from luscious dark greens through to silver and bronze, providing great flexibility. Use them to make a focal point, for screening, to create avenues or as part of a planting composition. Look out for abies concolor, with its silvery blue-green needles and upward purple cones; cedar pinaceae, with its arching stems of dark blue green; false cypress boulevard; chamaecyparis laws ellwood's gold and the Japanese cedar with its striking copper-plum winter foliage.

Many plant centres – and Priory Farm is no exception – like to kick-start the New Year by reducing a few lines, so this is a good time to grab some bargains and create eye-catching changes. Elegant or contemporary style pots with statement stone benches can make a real marked change in your garden, and need no work other than deciding where to position them.

So, after your garden clearance session, return to the warmth of your home, kick off those muddy shoes, make yourself a nice cup of tea and sit back to plan your garden for 2012. It may be Olympic year but, by putting in some ground work now, looking after your outside room need not become a marathon.

Find more gardening advice from Priory Farm at www.PrioryFarm.co.uk or visit the Plant Centre on Sandy Lane, South Nutfield, RH1 4EJ