Preparing for the arrival of Spring during April

Whilst it's been a long time coming, Spring is now officially here and the weather is slowly getting slightly warmer. It's therefore the ideal time to now start preparing yourself for the year ahead in your garden and getting your Garden Design strategy underway.

One of the most important things that must to be done at this time of year is to clean out your greenhouse ready to start sowing the seeds for the vegetables and flowers that you want to grow throughout the summer. Over the winter months, you may have put some of your more fragile or ornamental plants in the greenhouse to protect them from the elements. Some of these can come out now, even if it is just during the daylight hours (this is known as "hardening the plants"). This then gives you the chance to clean up the greenhouse, clean the windows, tidy the shelves and clean up your pots. If you've put bubblewrap insulation inside your greenhouse by way of a layer of added insulation, you can consider removing this now as well, but save it for use again at the end of Autumn.

Providing that you have a greenhouse or somewhere warm to bring them on, this is the ideal time to sow your tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines, salad leaves and even chillies (you may need to start the latter in an airing cupboard before moving them to the greenhouse). However you'll need to make sure that you keep a close eye on the weather forecast and if there is likely to be a frost, make sure your greenhouse is heated or alternatively bring your seedlings indoors overnight. You also need to ensure that newly planted seeds or potted on mini plants (plugs) are kept moist and turned towards the sun regularly. If you like to grow for flowers from seed, you should also be sowing these as well. Always use a good quality, fine compost free from peat (like John Innes Number 2).

Your garden will probably need a bit of a "spring clean" too. Raking up and clearing the fallen leaves from the lawn and flower beds is something that is important at this time of year. Clearing the flower beds of the leaves will help any spring bulbs that are coming through to get some of the warming spring sunshine, helping them grow, without having to fight their way through the untidy mulch. Weeding the beds will also help the bulbs come through but will also make your garden look a lot neater.

Clearing the lawn of the leaves will help the grass dry out a bit easier ready for the first cut of the year. The "raking" helps prepare the grass for the all important first cut as its possibly lacking lustre after such a hard winter. When mowing your lawn for the first time, make sure that your mower is set at the highest setting, so that it doesn't remove too much or tear the grass. This may mean that during the spring you will need to mow your lawn more often, particularly as the weather gets warmer but it will be worth it when your lawn looks lush and in good condition during the summer. Don't be tempted to add lawn reviver just yet, at least until the weather looks like it is definitely improving as there is a danger of "burning the grass" with the feed before it's actually had a chance to establish itself in the new season.

If you need to prune and tidy some of your plants and shrubs, now is the best time to do so (deciduous trees and shrubs, apart from those that flower in spring of course). It is also the time to prune back hydrangeas and clear away the dead flowers and stems. The rule of thumb for pruning is that if a bush or shrub flowers before mid June then prune after flowering. If it flowers later, then prune in early spring.

Another job that needs to be done in spring is to turn your soil, in preparation for the planting out your vegetables, unless of course you favour the organic "no dig" strategy (See our other articles on Organic Gardening at Home). You may well need to add some top soil or compost, depending on the type of soil that you have and also depending on what you are planning on growing in the soil. A harsh winter which has probably eroded the soil coupled with a couple of seasons of wind blowing away the top surface of your soil may have left it needing nutrients. If you are going to add top soil or compost, then this should be done now before you start planting out your seedlings and young plants in a month or two's time. If you are growing an early crop of potatoes, these can be planted now as soon as the soil is prepared and ready.

If you have fruit bushes already in the ground, then you now need to be adding some well rotted manure to the soil and tie the canes to wires to help them grow. Add manure to the base of plants and lightly dig into the soil up to a foot (12 inches) or so around the base of each cane.

After all of this hard landscaping work for Spring, you may want to take a break and visit a garden centre or nursery to get some ideas for the overall garden design including the colour schemes that you are going to have in the garden as the season progress and shrubs burst into bloom. If you want to get some early spring colour in your garden then simply buy and add potted Daffodils and Tulips to borders. This will add instant colour, plugs any gaps in the borders and the bulbs will remain to bloom again year after year.

You can now also buy bulbs for flowers that will come through in the summer months and these should be planted now. Alternatively you may want to buy plug plants which you can grow on in your greenhouse ready to plant out in the ground or containers when they get bigger and the weather gets warmer.

Spring is really the official start of the gardening calendar, and is the time of year where all our hard efforts first start to be noticed. Time spent in the garden now will be well rewarded in the summer.

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