As winter starts to fade, it is time to put on the gardening boots and gloves, and get stuck into a few tasks that will help you get the most out of your garden this spring.
Showcase Your Garden
One of the best times to relax and enjoy the labours of your gardening work is in early spring as the first flush of colour emerges and then becomes rampant. Sitting out in your garden, enjoying the perfumed air, surveying the visual feast of blossoms and blooms, and bright new growth of trees and border plants is a sensory delight.
Another aspect of showing off your garden are to consider the landscape surrounds and materials, including driveways, paths, borders, pots and other decorative elements. Whether you use stone, stone chippings, wood, concrete or metal, these elements need to complement your overall garden design and colour scheme.
Top Gardening Chores
However, before you can show off your garden at its best for spring, there are some chores to look over, including:
1. Sowing and Planting – propagating plants from cuttings and divisions; repotting and new plantings.
2. Landscaping – decorative features; borders and paths.
3. Maintenance – fertilising; pest control; pruning and weeding.
You may not need to tackle all of the above right now, particularly if you did a lot of these at the end of autumn, but it is a check-list worth going over again.
Planting and Sowing
Before the warmer weather sets in get all your new bare rooted plants in such as roses, clematis and deciduous trees. Have a good look at your garden beds and decide whether you need to sub-divide clumps of plants, or propagate new plants by layering or other methods.
If you have frost free zones, it might be a good time to visit plant nurseries and garden centres, and get some advanced stock. Annuals and perennials can be planted out into sheltered sunny zones, and then progressively around the garden as frosts disappear.
Just around the corner, you will need to think about your summer display and how to follow that on from the spring season. It is generally too late to get your spring bulbs in now, but summer bulbs can be planted out as the frosts fade.
Landscaping
The overall appearance of your home and garden can be greatly enhanced by the right landscaping materials and decorative elements. Paths can be laid with pavers and flagstones that are bedded into gravel, stone chippings, bark mixes and other materials to great effect. Stone chippings can be a cost effective and attractive option. They are highly durable, and available in a large range of stone sizes and colours.
Maintenance
Don’t neglect those tedious but essential maintenance tasks. Get the pruning shears out and trim back overgrown, unsightly or dying branches. A hard trim now will minimise trimming later in the season. Dig in fertilizers like cow manure and compost where necessary. Get stuck into any weeds that are still hanging on, and think about using wood chips, stone chippings or other materials to inhibit weed growth in your garden beds. Match these with the same landscaping material in your paths and borders for a harmonious effect.
About the author:
Sarah writes for Qeedle and other small business websites in the UK.
I look so forward to gardening. I can only hope this snowy winter weather is over with but we still have to get through March. I start with the indoor plants waking them up with miracle grow. I can’t start outside until around April.