Spring In Your Garden

Spring is finally in evidence as daffodils and flowering trees start to bloom. Expect the inevitable April showers this month but with sunny days too, when you can turn your attention to the lawn. It’s an exciting month, with indoor-sown seeds well into growth, and it’s also time to start sowing outdoors. Just watch out for frosts…

Plant out your autumn-sown sweet pea seedlings, or sow sweet pea seeds directly into their final flowering position now.

Sow hardy annuals indoors or directly outdoors. 

Sow half-hardy flower seeds in trays and keep them on a windowsill or in the greenhouse. Prick out seedlings when they’re large enough to handle and plant them into individual pots. Water them regularly and give a weekly feed.

Order young flower plants for delivery in May, ready to fill any gaps with colour.

Remove any faded flowers from early-flowering bulbs, especially daffodils.

If you want them to naturalise, then leave the flowers to die back naturally on snowdrops, crocus, muscari, scillas and other small bulbs.

In mild areas, plant dahlia tubers outside towards the end of the month.

Stagger the planting of your gladioli 

corms to prolong the flowering period.

Deadhead spring-flowering plants like primroses and pansies.

Place plant support frames over growing clumps of tall perennials now to encourage the new stems to grow through and hide the supports from view.

Plant begonia tubers in pots and keep them in the greenhouse – remember that the concave part of the tuber needs to be uppermost when you plant them.

Plant lily bulbs in pots so that you can move them around the garden when they flower.

Plant summer-flowering bulbs into pots for bright displays.

Plant up hanging baskets with specially selected hanging basket plants. Keep your baskets in a sheltered spot or in the greenhouse while the plants grow on.

Plant summer bedding into pots and containers this month. Shelter them in a greenhouse to move outdoors at the end of May/early June.