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Tuesday 31 March 2015

This Month in your Garden – April

It’s blooming spring


There’s a lot to be excited about in April. Spring bulbs and tree blossom bring fresh colour to the
garden, heightened by those inevitable sunny days. It’s time to divide and sow, weed and feed and step up the grass cutting but still watch out for frosts.

You can be sowing hardy annuals outdoors when the temperature reaches about 7°C/ (45°F) or early in the month in the greenhouse to give you early flowers. Harden off bedding plants and half-hardy annuals in the greenhouse where you can also pot seedlings of begonias and gloxinias. Divide Hostas before they start into leaf and it’s a good time to divide primroses and primulas after flowering.

You can take chrysanthemum cuttings now and plant out hardened off violas and pansies. Fuchsias, Buddleia, Hydrangea, cornus (dogwood) and salix (willow) will all benefit from pruning, while trees, shrubs and hedges can do with a slow-release fertiliser forked into the soil. Apply a mulch such as well rotted manure around perennials, trees and shrubs to counter the hotter weather coming later.

  • Keep weeding
  • Loosen tree ties so they don’t cut into the wood
  • Plant summer flowering bulbs in beds, borders and containers
  • Tie in climbing and rambling roses
  • Deadhead winter pansies to keep them flowering
  • Feed roses with a compound fertiliser
  • Plant out forced bulbs such as hyacinths and daffodils 
  • Protect fruit blossom from late frosts
  • Tie in clematis and honeysuckle 
  • Plant Gladioli for succession

Picture courtesy lovethegarden.com


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