Gardening jobs this month: April

What to do in the garden this month from the gardening experts of Prima and Country Living

From Prima gardening expert Ann-Marie Powell:

● Give shrubs and roses a feed of slow-release fertiliser (fish, blood
and bone).
● Start giving houseplants more water.
● Feed citrus plants with a high-nitrogen feed.
● Sow new lawns, repair bald patches and damaged edges.
● Continue to deadhead spring-flowering bulbs, such as daffodils and apply a general feed.
● Replenish the top couple of inches of compost and mulch on container plants, and give them a good liquid feed.
● Sow salad, broad beans and peas directly into the soil.
● Sow herb seeds in the greenhouse or on the windowsill.
● Keep on top of weeds. 

● Start trimming your box hedges and topiaries now, or wait another three to four weeks in colder areas.
● Thin out old clumps of bamboo to allow this year's shoots lots of space.
● Sow runner, broad and French beans, beetroots, carrots, cabbages, salad onions, spinach, herbs and Brussels sprouts outside.
● Sow hardy annuals, such as calendula and nasturtium, in shallow drills or patches.
● For summer evening fragrance, sow night-scented stocks (Matthiola longipetala and M. bicornis).
● Repot over-wintered geraniums, pelargoniums and fuchsias into fresh compost and feed them every three weeks. Place outside when danger of frost has passed.
● Now's your last chance to plant your summer-flowering bulbs and rhizomes. These include hedychium, gadioli, nerines, eucomis and dahlias, lilies and gladioli.

 

From Country Living gardening editor Stephanie Donaldson:

● Divide pot-grown agapanthus. Though they do like to be crowded, this is necessary from time to time. Remove from pot and use a spade to
chop into two or four pieces and plant in fresh compost.
● Cut back sage growth by half to keep it shapely. If it has become leggy, prune hard to within 15cm of the ground.
● Introduce biological controls in the greenhouse. 

 

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