Monty Don says do this trick 'immediately' to prevent more damage to your plants

Monty Don has shared a vital tip with green-fingered enthusiasts across Britain, advising them to act 'immediately' to save their plants from damage. The horticultural guru, while presenting on the BBC programme, explained his own decision to plant a hedge in his garden's orchard.

The 69 year old Gardener's World presenter chose a hawthorn with bare roots and stressed the importance of protecting the plants from drying out and dying. He recommended using hessian sacks, dampening them, and laying them over the roots right after receiving the plants.

Monty advised: "Bare roots mean they've been grown in soil. So you make the order, they're dug up and sent out the same day.

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"When they come, you need to do something about them immediately. You either need to heel them in, which means just simply covering the roots with soil. Or you need to give them a drink for half an hour or so, then cover them up," reports the Express.

"Then as you plant them you must never let the roots be exposed for more than a few minutes, because these very fine roots are the feeding roots, they dry out and then die. So what I've got here is some hessian, and this is a really good trick. If you've got bare root plants, get yourself some hessian and just damp it down."

"That gives you a wet cloth to put over the roots as they're ready to be planted. So I've got a damp cloth that I can lay over them."

Following Monty's 'warning' on the best plants for the season, he spoke about how winter means stripping back his own garden at Longmeadow in Herefordshire. During this time, he describes how the usually lush greenery turns into a "sodden" and "brown" mess amid colder weather.

But the proficient gardener takes advantage of the dry spells in winter to plant bulbs – and mentions one particular type he advises planting at this time of year. On the Gardeners' World podcast, Monty shared: "Whenever the weather is dry enough we try and do as much planting as we can that needs doing, so certainly bulbs. We don't think about planting tulips until November."

He added: "So we try and get everything else done before November, we try, but it doesn't always work. Again, you can't plant bulbs in pouring rain.