Cold frames are great items to purchase if you have some spare space in your garden and you don’t have a greenhouse or conservatory. They allow tender plants to survive by keeping out the worst of the wet and cold weather. You could insulate the top of the frame with bubble polythene and the sides with cut slabs of polystyrene around the sides. On the colder nights you could increase the insulation by covering the top with old carpet or another sheet of polystyrene.

Don’t forget to tie in long, whippy shoots of climbers and wall shrubs to prevent them from being blown around and being damaged. If there isn’t any framework available to tie them onto then prune the shoots to five or six buds.