Spring Gardening Tips
March
- Plant summer-flowering bulbs
- Add fresh compost to plant containers
- If you have to transfer evergreen shrubs or conifers, now is an ideal time
- Sprinkle a general fertiliser around trees and shrubs
- Paint fences before climbers encroach
- Sow tomato seeds indoors
- Sow lettuce, parsley and radish
- To help reduce the chances of black spot, rake up leaves and debris from around roses after pruning, and apply a thick layer of compost
April
- If you haven’t done it already, the lawn is likely to need its first mow of the year. Before cutting the grass, rake with a wire rake. This will raise any buttercup or clover runners and reduce their spread.
- Repot houseplants.
- Complete pruning, support and tie in climbers.
- Loosen or renew any tree ties that may be digging into the bark.
- Weed the flower beds and apply a mulch which will improve soil fertility and help to control the weeds.
- Slugs and snails will start to make an appearance, so sprinkle grit or egg shells around vulnerable plants, which slugs don’t like crawling across.
- Strawberry plants can be planted.
- Plant summer flowering bulbs.
- Plant your tomatoes in the greenhouse.
- Plant out second early potatoes.
May
- Sow any remaining hardy annual seeds you have.
- Sow any peas.
- Begin to feed houseplants using a liquid fertiliser
- Lift and divide daffodils.
- Lift any early potatoes.
- At the end of the month, plant out summer bedding plants.
- Mow the lawn regularly. For the best lawn, be sure to remove the cuttings, and regularly apply a lawn feed. If you have a problem with weeds, apply a selective weed and moss killer.
- Clear any weeds from around fruit bushes and strawberries to allow movement of air.
Gardening hints & tales
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info@bettertomorrows.org.uk
By post to:
WSCC, Wastes Management Services,
