How to prepare your garden for spring

How to prepare your garden for spring

March, 2020

Spring is fast approaching, and ideally your garden should be mostly prepared by now. If you’re late in readying your garden for spring, don’t worry! We have some tips to help you along:

 

Order summer-flowering seeds and bulbs

If you’d like a flourishing garden in the summer, now is the time to plant those summer bulbs. Flowers such as gladioli’s and lilies should be planted ASAP to ensure you can enjoy them when summer arrives.

 

Clean out your greenhouse

Wash the outside of your greenhouse to remove any algae or moss that is hanging around. This will ensure that more light is let in during the summer months, which will provide better growing conditions for any plants and seedlings. Don’t forget to wash the inside of the greenhouse too!

Sweep the floors to clear any debris, and wash with warm garden disinfectant. Make sure to ventilate your greenhouse for a couple of days after cleaning to ensure that it dries thoroughly. Also keep an eye out for any cracks in the glass or other damage that could affect your plants.

 

Tidy up your flower beds

Remove any leaves and debris from your flowerbeds. It’s a good idea to cut back any dead plants and grasses to allow for fresh growth. Make sure to place any dead plants and other debris into your compost pile for them to break down. Remember, don’t compost weeds as the seeds will germinate and will cause you problems later on.

You can use compost (once it’s all broken down) to fill empty garden borders. Simply work a 5cm layer of compost into these borders to provide excellent growing conditions for your plants.

 

Remove any garden pests

Most pests will be in hibernation during the winter months, so now is the perfect time to find them and remove them. We aren’t talking about rats or mice, although if you suspect that you have either of these, then contact a professional exterminator immediately. The pests you want to watch out for are small, but can cause havoc in your garden. We’re talking about slugs, snails, and aphids.

If you haven’t uprooted last year’s summer plants, do so because white-vine-weevils live in compost and feed on plant roots. Destroy any larvae that you find, and keep an eye out for any fully-grown weevils in your garden this year.

 

Install water butts

Water butts are an excellent method of collecting rainwater as it falls. Since winter and spring are the seasons where there is the most rainfall, now is the ideal time to invest in a water butt.

This is a huge step forward in environmentally friendly gardening, as you won’t have to rely on mains water as much. Also, rainwater is actually far better for your garden, as mains water can be slightly too alkaline for some garden plants.

When installing the water butt, position it underneath a downpipe from your house or your garden shed.

 

General garden maintenance

Now is the ideal time to do some general upkeep around your garden. Maybe your garden fence is looking a bit tired? Time to get the paint, stain, and varnish out of the shed and give it some TLC! The same goes for any garden gates and furniture. Keep an eye out for any damage or rot, and try to rectify these issues as soon as you can. Make sure you do this on a dry day!

 

Clean and sharpen your gardening tools

Regular maintenance of garden tools will save you lots of money, and will also help to prevent the spread of disease among your plants. If you use a pair of dirty scissors or secateurs on a variety of plants, you could be spreading bacteria to these fresh pruning wounds.

Clean tools using a mixture of hot water and strong detergent, and scrub them with a tough scourer. Sharpening your tools will also give cleaner pruning cuts in the future, and increase the longevity of the tools.