April is a busy month in the garden, everything is revving up into growth and there are jobs that if done now, will make a real difference to how everything looks later on.
Make a start by enrich the soil with fertiliser:
to give plants a helping hand. I like to use pelleted chicken manure or blood,fish & bone, organic fertilisers like these release nutrients slowly into the soil.
Plant lilies bulbs in pots:
a mix of peat-free multi-purpose and soil-based compost works best, plant them deep and put stakes in now ready to support them as they grow. They’ll smell amazing when they flowering the summer, madonna lily (Lilium candidum) is one of the best for fragrance.
Snip the flowers off tulips and daffodils as they finish flowering:
keep the leaves in place until they turn yellow, they’ll help the bulbs to grow nice and fat ready to flower again next year, a little sprinkle of fertiliser will help too.
Daffodils and hyacinths that have been flowering indoors can be planted out in the garden now.
Lawns:
Gently rake the soil and sprinkle grass-seed on bald patches in the lawn, keep an eye on the weather and water the area if it doesn’t rain.
It’s just the right time to put down turf for a new lawn.
Sow hardy annuals, like calendula (english marigolds, poppies and love-in-a mist) directly into the ground where they are to flower. They’re so easy to grow and you’ll get plenty of flowers.
Trim shrubs
like rosemary, lavender and sage so they don’t become straggly, the new growth is fresher too. Cut back along the stem to small new shoots, but not as far back as older wood, easily spotted because its much darker in colour
Organise stakes for tall perennials:
push them into the ground so they’ll be good and firm. It’s much better to do this now rather than later on when the new growth has already started.
More about growing flowers from seed here.
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Happy gardening
Jill
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