The signs of spring are just around the corner. We paired up with Dobbies to help you prepare your garden for the sunnier days and longer evenings ahead. Here’s what to do in your garden this month.
With ideas for every size garden and top tips to protect plants from the snow, gardening expert and Dobbies Horticultural Director, Marcus Eyles shares some advice.
Terrace garden
There is a wide choice of easy-to-grow summer flowering bulbs, including begonias, dahlias and gladioli.
Refresh patio pots, hanging baskets and window boxes with a cheerful display of early season primroses, violas and bellis, planting potted spring bulbs into the gaps for an extra burst of flower colour.
One of the most economical ways to ensure your tubs and baskets are full of cascading colour this coming summer, is to grow your own bedding plants from young plants, potted up into small pots to grow on in a warm frost-free greenhouse, conservatory or windowsill until all risk of frost is passed.
Beds and borders
Winter flowering shrubs that have finished flowering can be pruned now. Cut stems off cornus and salix to encourage strong new stems of vibrant colour for next winter’s display.
Deciduous grasses left alone to protect overwintering beneficial insects can be cut down now to make way for fresh new season’s growth. Brush or rake growth of evergreen grasses to remove dead foliage.
Continue to plant new hedges, trees and shrubs. These are beneficial to our wildlife and wider environment, so allow them time to establish before the summer.
Top-dressing borders with a layer of mulch or manure will help prevent weeds as well as give your plants a welcome spring boost.
Grow your own
Plant new fruit trees and bushes and look forward to delicious home-grown fruit, picked fresh from the garden
Cut spent canes of autumn fruiting raspberries to the floor to encourage new stems to grow in their place.
Complete pruning apple and pear trees as well as soft fruit bushes, such as gooseberries and blackcurrants. Aim to create an open goblet shape of strong branches ready to carry your summer harvest.
Fork over vegetable beds, removing any weeds whilst adding plenty of farmyard manure as you go. To help warm the soil quicker for spring planting, consider covering prepared beds with black weed membrane until you’re ready.
In the greenhouse
Sow sweet peas under cover for strong bushy plants ready for planting out in April. Soak seeds for 24 hours in tepid water prior to sowing to help speed up germination — allow two seeds per root trainer or deep pot.
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