Monty Don says gardeners must do one trick 'immediately' to prevent plants from dying

Gardeners' World host Monty Don has shared some invaluable advice for green-fingered folks, stressing the urgency of a certain technique to shield their plants from harm. On the BBC programme, the gardening expert shared his decision to plant a hedge along the back of his orchard using hawthorn with bare roots, emphasising the need to prevent the plants from drying out and perishing.

He urged viewers to utilize hessian sacks, moistened and draped over the roots—advising them to carry out this procedure 'immediately' upon 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."

"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."

"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,"reports the Express.

"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."

Monty Don has issued a 'warning' about the best plants to nurture during November. The renowned gardener shares that during winter, he prunes back the foliage in his own garden at Longmeadow in Herefordshire, which transforms into a "sodden" and "brown" landscape as temperatures dip.

Monty takes advantage of the drier spells this season to plant bulbs, with tulips on top of his planting schedule from this month. Speaking on the Gardeners' World podcast, Monty advised: "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."