The weather is going to be the telling factor in garden design trends this year, thanks to several years of excessively wet weather and flooding.

So says award-winning garden designer Chris Beardshaw, co-presenter of BBC Two’s Great Garden Revival, who is planning a Healthy Cities show garden with first-time RHS Chelsea Flower Show sponsor Morgan Stanley.

“There’s a real awareness of the challenges of the weather,” he says. “We’ve gone through that period when we thought it was going to get hotter – buying phormiums and cordylines and then finding the winter killed them.

“People are going back to much more resilient planting types. There’s a real resurgence in shrubs. The last few decades have been about herbaceous perennials and grasses and I think a lot of people are now much more interested in combinations.

“We often put shrub roses with clematis and an underscore of bulbs to give the three hits of interest. People are becoming aware that one plant doesn’t necessarily cover all bases and are adopting a more refined approach.”

Plants such as phillyrea and deciduous rhododendrons, which provide masses of interest through a long season and little maintenance, may become more popular, he predicts, while we are moving away from “static gardens”, low-maintenance, minimalist plots which don’t change through seasons and lack personality.

“People want the garden to respond to the seasons and the plants have to respond to that.

“The bubble of grow-your-own has burst,” he continues. “After a couple of dodgy weather seasons, most people are now realising that growing fruit and veg is not as easy as it might seem and, as a consequence, are becoming more selective about what they grow.

“Rhubarb is becoming fantastically popular because it is so easy to grow, along with fruit like damsons and gages, which can be planted as hedging or put in a wild area of the garden and will largely look after themselves.

“Likewise, with vegetables, we will take into account the amount of time and space our choice uses up. So things like cut-and-come-again salad leaves, which cost a lot in the shops, will continue to be popular as they are easy to grow and give great rewards.”

Gardeners seem to be more savvy now, perhaps because of the wealth of information available on the internet, and want more bang for their buck when buying plants, he says.

This week's jobs -

* Enrich soil with compost where beans are to be grown

* Continue to dig over borders and vegetable plots, as conditions allow

* Take cuttings from conifers

* Order herbaceous perennials from catalogues for spring delivery

* Dust stored dahlia tubers with sulphur powder, to discourage rot

* If you have dug over a new area, cover the ground with a large sheet of polythene, weighted with bricks around the edges, to keep off the worst of the winter weather and deter weeds

* Start to chit seed potatoes, available from garden centres

* Apply organic fertiliser – such as blood, fish and bone – over beds and borders, which will release nutrients slowly over a long period

* Order summer-flowering bulbs

* As bulbs finish flowering indoors, remove the spent flowerheads and give them a dose of high-potash fertiliser, before putting them in a sheltered spot outdoors.

Best of the bunch: chillies -

If you want to get a head start with some hot favourites, start to sow chillies now, in a heated propagator indoors, or on a heated mat, which should produce stronger plants by the time the flowers appear in early summer.

These plants have a long growing season so can be started off on a warm windowsill, with additional heat, or in the greenhouse or conservatory.

Fill a seed tray with peat-free compost and scatter seeds thinly.

Put them on a heated bench to germinate and by early summer you will have strong plants.