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Each month, receive tips on the top jobs needed in your garden as well as a wealth of information on a range of gardening topics. From sowing seeds to picking fruit, each month get access to information on the care and maintenance of your flowerbeds, vegetable plot and lawn. As with your own gardening diary, the journal is split into separate sections, each covering a different area of garden care.

Wednesday 1 April 2020

This Month in Your Garden - April

‘Spring makes everything young again except man.’ Richter


In these unprecedented times, social distancing and isolation at home can have negative effects on mental health. Gardening is known to help and while it’s not a panacea, anyone who is feeling anxious may find the garden a therapeutic respite. At the time of writing this month’s journal the garden centres were closing, but ordering online and keeping a safe distance between you and the courier is still an alternative.

There’s still time to order and put in shrubs, roses, seeds, sow hardy annuals, wildflower seeds and plant summer bulbs. You can proliferate existing plants in the garden by dividing and re-planting, not forgetting water lilies if you have a pond. Climbing and rambling roses will need tieing in and there are the ubiquitous weeds to keep under control.

Don’t forget to water plants in pots and containers in dry periods and if there are late frosts fruit blossom will need protection. Shrubs and roses will be hungry by now and need a feed. Deadhead winter pansies and they will keep flowering. Forced bulbs such as hyacinths and daffodils from indoors can be planted out now. Clematis and honeysuckle will benefit from being tied in.

Above all, observing the guidelines, recommendations and rules of the current situation, let the garden come to you with all that spring has to offer.

  • Harden off bedding plants and half-hardy annuals in the greenhouse
  • Pot seedlings of begonias and gloxinias
  • Divide Hostas before they start into leaf
  • Divide primroses and primulas after flowering
  • Take cuttings of chrysanthemums to proliferate
  • Prune Buddleia, Fuschias, Salix (willow) and Cornus (dogwood)
  • Fork a slow-release fertiliser into the soil around trees, shrubs and hedges.
  • Mulch with well-rotted manure around perennials, trees and shrubs to help them in hotter months






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