We are standing on the brink of spring, and that means brown and barren winter gardens will soon be stirring with green shoots. Here are a few jobs that you can do to help your garden bloom with vibrant life and colour over the coming months.
Plant or divide perennials
Now is the time to plant perennials and reinvigorate your existing hardy plants. If you are in need of some fresh blood, hardy fuchsias and echinacea are great choices for some colour.
If you have a shady area where anything is struggling to grow, you could try Bruenna ‘Jack Frost’, which flowers from April until May. It produces pretty blue flowers and heart shaped silver grey leaves, and is useful for ground cover in moist soil that doesn’t get a lot of sun.
Another good choice for ground cover is Epimedium ‘Amber Queen’, which is semi-evergreen and produces yellow flowers with an unusual spider-like appearance.
If you already have established perennials, it is a good idea to lift and divide them at this time of year to encourage vigorous new growth. This is especially true of plants that tend to clump together, such as geraniums, asters, hostas, and echinacea.
Choose a mild day when the soil is soft, and prune the plant first. Dig around the plant with a garden fork, and then work underneath it and lift it out. Shake the soil away from the roots. Some plants will break apart of their own accord, and others may need pulling or cutting to separate them.
Dig over the soil to encourage the even distribution of moisture and nutrients and replant the individual clumps at a distance of 30cm, or more for larger or fast-growing plants. If a particular plant has not been thriving in its previous home, try and find a new position for it with more sun, or less sun, depending on the planting guidelines.
Sow colourful summer flowers
It is also a good time to sow some perennial seeds for the summer. Hoe the soil to break up clumps and remove large stones and weeds. Lightly water the soil when it is broken down into a fine texture, and plant the seeds to the depth and distance advised on the packet. For mood-boosting bursts of colour, choose marigolds, sunflowers, and poppies.
Do the first mow of the year
It’s time to give the grass a trim as it will have started to grow as the days gradually lengthen and become milder. Adjust the blades to the highest setting to avoid scalping the turf and damaging the new growth. Also pull up any new weed growth on the lawn and in beds and borders, as it is easier to nip it in the bud at this time of year than let it build up.
Deadhead flowering shrubs
If you have flowering shrubs such as buddleia, hydrangea and rose of sharon, now is the time to cut back any dead flowerheads and remove straggly stems to encourage fresh growth.
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