THE mild weather that we have recently enjoyed has encouraged many of us to think about gardening. It is unwise to do much outside, for we could get quite severe weather soon which would scupper everything, but it is possible to be selective and start in the greenhouse or on a well-lit window ledge.

It is a bit too early to start off vegetables, except perhaps for greenhouse tomatoes, pot cauliflowers and exhibition onions, but many popular flowers can be sown now to great advantage. Not only is it a time for seeds, but some of the many colourful bulbs, corms and tubers of summer.

Freesias for summer cutting can be planted during the coming weeks. Use a soil based compost such as John Innes No2 and place in a cool sunny window. Plant the corms almost shoulder to shoulder in the pot to ensure dense growth which will be self-supporting.

You can also plant anemone tubers in pots with a view to having some late spring or early summer cut flowers. It is too hazardous to plant them outside much before the end of March, but by starting them with a little protection now they will grow away strongly.

De Caen anemones are the single kind and St Brigid the double, and both strains are available in all manner of bright colours from red and pink to purple and blue. In order to ensure rapid sprouting, soak the little tubers overnight in water and then plant in much the same way as freesias.

Tuberous begonias can be started into growth. Plant the brown, hairy tubers immediately and place them just below the surface in a tray of damp peat or soil-less compost and water well.

Providing you can maintain warm conditions, the tubers will sprout vigorously and each shoot is a potential cutting, given light airy growing conditions. Once a couple of inches high, it is wise to remove all except one shoot.

This latter will develop into the plant and the other shoots can be rooted in a mixture of equal parts of peat and perlite. Most shoots treated in this way will root and make a new plant and usually five or six shoots are produced from a single tuber.

The popular modern coloured arums or callas can be treated similarly, except that the shoots have to retain a small piece of the tuber in order to root successfully. These lovely tropical plants usually produce a cluster of shoots from a single tuber and you can make a sizeable group for planting from two or three specimens purchased at this time of the year.

The lovely little fleshy-rooted hot water plant, achimenes, must be started into growth now if it is to provide a long flowering season. As soon as sprouts appear they can be removed and rooted as cuttings.

Non-flowering shoots about an inch long are ideal to root in an equal parts mixture of peat and perlite, half a dozen cuttings to a small pot. Do not lift and separate them when they have rooted, but allow five or six rooted cuttings to develop into a single entity.

WHAT'S NEW

* Glorious is a spectacular mixed-coloured, seed-raised strain of chrysanthemum.

* Corno Rosso is an Italian sweet pepper.

* Kingship is a revived heritage exhibition parsnip