Six steps to a super spring garden

A little work in the garden now can save you hours later in the year!

Step 1: Beautiful borders
Borders tend to look bedraggled by late March or early April. A few hours of spring cleaning will save you more work later in the year.
It's easy! Prune late-flowering shrubs (caryopteris, buddleja, leycesteria and lavatera) and late-summer- and autumn-flowering clematis to ensure neat plants with flowers at eye level, not high up.

● You can remove spent flowerheads on mophead and lacecap hydrangeas, cutting them to a pair of strong buds. On very old bushes, cutting the oldest stems to ground level will make the shrub more open and encourage fresh new growth. Hydrangea paniculata can be hard-pruned, leaving only two or three buds on each branch.

● Be patient with grey-leaved tender shrubs that seem to have been damaged by winter frost - ceanothus, phlomis, helichrysum, salvia, sage and artemisia often layer themselves, producing new growth where twigs have touched the ground.

● Prune overgrown spring-flowering shrubs (forsythia, winter honeysuckle and flowering quince) after they've finished flowering.

● Hybrid tea and floribunda roses need to be cut back to within 1-2in of last year's growth, cutting above an outward-facing bud. Shrub roses need a gentler trim, taking about 4in over the whole plant.

● Cut back perennials and ornamental grasses before new growth becomes entangled with old.

● Weed in early spring to save time later. Just as your prized blooms begin to grow, so will weeds. Either dig them up or hoe them off the minute you see them. Weeding little and often is far less arduous than a full-on session once there seem to be more weeds than plants! A thick mulch of bark chips over your border will make it more difficult for weeds to set seed and will cut down the light they need to thrive.

● Give your borders a feed with a general-purpose fertiliser such as Growmore or fish, blood and bone. Clear up weedy beds, then mulch with bark chips, compost or mushroom compost to suppress weeds, insulate plants and conserve moisture. And, if you plan to sow any seed, don't mulch.

Tip: Soak difficult weeds with water from the watering can before digging them up, this will make it easier to lift the whole root.

Step 2: space-saving ideas
If you're low on space, containers and pots are a great way to add colour and interest in the garden for spring. Here are some ideas with a difference.

Jazz up a flight of steps by repeating the same plants in metallic planters - spring bulbs such as daffodils, hyacinths and tulips are available in full bloom from garden centres and will give the garden an instant lift.

● Large pots filled with exotics create an instant jungle on the patio - date palms, bamboo, phormium and cordylines need plenty of water and feed to look good all summer.

● Cover a manhole with a host of geraniums in a pot to create pizzazz and hide a garden feature you'd rather not see!

● Pots filled with ericaceous compost allow you to create a stunning spring display of rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias, even if you don't have acid soil. Choose pots in complementary or contrasting colours to give extra zing

● Plant summer-flowering bulbs in pots in March for really extravagant displays. After their summer performance, lilies, agapanthus, canna and zantedeschia can all be easily moved in winter to a frost-free place.

Step 3: love your lawn
Most lawns are ready for their first cut in March, but raise the blades on your mower, as grass requires gentle treatment at this time of year. While there is any danger of frost, keep your grass at least 0.5in long.

● After edging your lawn, reseed any bare or brown patches and make edge repairs. Hold off on the fertiliser until April or May, when lawn growth really gets going. Any earlier and you'll only be encouraging lawn weeds to grow.

● Finally, mow your lawn at least once a week throughout the summer - this may sound arduous, but a lawn is easier to mow when it's short than long, and regular mowing encourages denser growth, which not only looks great but smothers weed seedlings, too.

Step 4: inject colour with annuals
Annuals cram their whole lives into one season, but their bold and brilliant flowers make them invaluable. They fill gaps in permanent plantings, add volume and colour to young borders, and are cheap enough to let you experiment.

● They fall into three groups: half-hardy annuals such as busy Lizzies (impatiens), hardy annuals such as alyssum, sunflowers, sweet peas and pot marigolds, and tender perennials such as pelargoniums. Half-hardy annuals can't take low temperatures, so seed must be started off indoors. You may prefer to buy them in trays from your local garden centre. They're usually on sale long before the last frost, but don't plant them out until any risk of frost is gone.

● Be bold - strong blocks of colour are far more effective than small drops here and there. If you overdo it, some plants can easily be pulled up.

● Annual climbers grow with the same enthusiasm as their border counterparts. Try Ipomoea tricolor ‘Heavenly Blue', Tropaeolum speciosum or Black-eyed Susan (Thunbergia alata) in pots, over arches, through other climbers, in hanging baskets or up a wigwam.

● Growing hardy annuals in pots is a great project for kids - the Children's GrowTub from Harrod Horticultural has everything you need to grow sunflowers, carrots or both (from £9.95 plus delivery, www.harrodhorticultural.com).

Step 5: easy ideas for lawns
Rather than struggle to mow down steep banks, add wildflower plugs and create a meadow, which only needs mowing once a year.
If you've got large areas of lawn, why not let some areas grow long and then mow paths through them? This is great fun for children, easier to maintain than a whole lawn, and easy to change once you get bored!

How to... sow from seed

● Sow them in the ground at the end of March or early April.

● Dig over the area, rake the surface into a fine tilth, then sow your seed in zigzags or irregular drifts, marking the area with a label.

● As they grow, thin your seedlings to about 6in per plant to give those remaining room to grow to their full potential.

Step 6: grow your own
If you're new to vegetable growing, go for plants that can be sown where they are to be harvested, which need little thinning.

You don't need a veg garden: plants will be happy in the flower border and in small numbers in pots - some will even grow in window boxes and hanging baskets. Here are some you can sow from March onwards:

● Early potatoes are harvested before drought might become a problem, and if planted out in March should be ready to harvest in about 13 weeks.

● Broad beans are the hardiest of beans to grow, and dwarf varieties need less space and less staking. Beans sown in March should be ready to harvest in 14 weeks.

● Beetroot seed may need thinning, and the plants are ready to harvest 11 weeks after sowing.

● Radish is super-fast, ready to harvest in three weeks. Sow regularly for a continuous crop.

● Various cut-and-come-again salad leaves are ready to crop six to eight weeks after planting. Garlic can be planted in February or March, each clove producing a bulb of up to 20 cloves.

Blitz the winter grime!
Finally, give your patio, paving and walls a spring clean. Hire a pressure washer to remove dirt and algae - they use less water than a hose, and are quicker and more effective.

● If your garden structures need repairing or fence panels need replacing, early spring is the time to do it, before they are overrun by plants. And it's amazing the difference a lick of paint can make to a shed or panel.

● Scrub your garden furniture with soapy water to remove dirt and algae, then give wooden furniture a couple of coats of teak oil or a coat of preservative. Aluminium, plastic and steel features simply need a wipe-down, then treat rusty spots with rust-proof paint.

Click here for a complete guide to spring-cleaning your garden

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