Thorny problems: moving large plants Snowdrop multiplication How can I encourage a small colony of snowdrops, planted by me four years ago, to increase more quickly? I am tempted to deadhead each flower so that all of each plant's energy goes into making more and better bulbs. Is this sensible? Janet Howe, via email Almost all snowdrops multiply naturally through a combination of producing offsets (small bulbs attached to the "parent" bulb) each year and by ripening seed. An exception to this is the most common double-flowered snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis 'Flore Pleno"). It does not set seed, so only spreads via its offsets. Offsets themselves do not produce flowers for a couple of years or more, and self-sown seedlings show as just a tiny pair of leaves in their first year and take even longer to get going. It is nevertheless best, I think, to just let the snowdrops get on with it without too much upheaval. You could, since they have had four undisturbed years, spread your small colony out a bit by splitting the clumps up, thinning out the bulbs and their maturing offsets and replanting them fairly randomly (to make them look more natural) in twos and threes, adding a little bonemeal to the soil beneath them. Thinning out is best done as the flowers fade but while the leaves are still green and intact. Once replanted, give all your bulbs a feed with Maxicrop Seaweed Plant Growth Stimulant to help them to get re-established before they become dormant. Don't deadhead them, however - just let the heavy snowdrop seed heads droop on to the ground and they will release their seed once they ripen during the summer. It would be helpful to mark out a cultivation no-go area around the clumps so that this process has a chance to happen without disturbance. It is easy to forget where spring-flowering bulbs are once their leaves have vanished. Dead or not? After a ferociously cold winter here in south-west France, a much-loved 10-year-old trachelospermum outside my kitchen door has brown, crispy leaves and some of the bark on the woody stems has split. Lower branches that may have been better protected show green under the bark if I scratch them with my nail, but they seem to snap off very easily. My instinct is to wait and see what happens - but when should I give up, and if I have to give up, what next? Catherine Dempsey, via email The answer here is, essentially, almost shorter than the question. Once the bark of woody plants starts to split after a severe frosting, it is invariably a case of thumbs down, possibly for the whole plant. That being said, your climber may possibly regenerate from lower down its trunk, which by the sound of things may be undamaged. You are therefore absolutely right to hang on a while, perhaps another month, depending on when your French spring springs, before cutting the plant back. And if the worst happens? Only you know the extent of your patience (and, to be brutally frank, how old you are), but I would grow the same lovely thing again. All gardeners (and me more than most) have to learn to eat their words, but really ghastly winters only happen every few years - your trachelospermum clearly coped for 10 years. So just grit your teeth and get another one. A solar ha-ha? And finally a bit of not-very-horticultural silliness that made me chuckle. I went to a posh girls" lunch recently (a rare occurrence, dear readers). As the excellent meal progressed, the garden-related whinges started. Catherine Bromley announced that she had solved at a stroke the appalling problem of getting plants to work in thin, arid soil on a long, steep and sunny south-facing bank. Even though the area is out of sight of the house, her perennial lack of success peeved her. So she simply "planted" a long row of solar panels. Now instead of weeding and watering, she happily counts the kilowatts. Is this the way forward, I wonder? Contemplating a tricky move I have a large and very vigorous plant of Himalayan honeysuckle that is rather too big for its allotted space. Ideally I would like to move it, but one that I moved in the past died on me. Is there a best time of year, or a particular knack to moving this plant? Brenda Gottelier, Market Deeping This is one of those confusing plant names. To non-botanists, Himalayan honeysuckle (Leycesteria formosa) bears little resemblance to the scented climbing honeysuckles with which we are more familiar, being a magnificent upright fast-growing plant with stout, hollow stems, bluish-green foliage and in late summer, 3in-long pendent flower spikes with purple bracts. Shiny purple berries follow. You are right, mature plants don't like being moved. You would perhaps do better to find a rogue seedling around the garden, pot it up and grow it on to plant out next autumn or the following spring in the place to which you would like to move your existing plant. You are likely to find plenty of seedlings as the birds adore the seeds and the plant can actually become a bit of a weed if you let it. In the meantime you can prune your magnificent monster and thus substantially reduce its size. Since it flowers on new wood, you could remove at ground level with a slim pruning saw as many of the older shoots as you see fit. The youngest green shoots that grew from around the base last year should be preserved intact unless they are too tall, in which case they can be halved along with the rest of the bush. Follow all this up with a feed and mulch, and you may even find that your slimmed-down shrub has earned a reprieve.