Gardening Jobs for April - Spring is on the way!

Are we allowed to let out a little cheer to celebrate that the clocks have gone forward, Spring is officially here and we can now enjoy lighter nights, which can only mean one thing…being able to send more time in the garden!

This is the time of year when your garden starts to spring back to life! It’s the perfect month to do final preparations to get you ready for a season of abundant growth.

Here’s a little reminder of what you should be focusing on in April.

Prepare your soil:

It’s been a long and wet Winter, and your soil needs some attention, remove all weeds and debris, dig over your flower beds to improve aeration, add compost or well-rotted manure to your soil to give it a well needed nutrient boost, ready for growing healthier and stronger plants.

Start sowing seeds outdoors:

Hardy crops can now be planted outside. Grow carrots, beetroots, radishes, leafy greens, peas and broad beans, just be mindful of any late frosts, keep fleeces and cloches ready to protect them.

Plant summer flowering bulbs:

Planting now means you will watch your garden bloom in the summer months. This is the perfect excuse to take a much needed trip to the Garden Centre to buy bulbs such as Dahlias, Lilies and Gladioli. When planting, always make sure that the soil is well drained and they are planted in sunny spots.

To prevent you from getting too messy in the garden, take a look at our Okatsune Toolbelt, plenty of pockets to store your seeds in, keeping your hands free for that all important seed sowing.

Prune, prune, prune:

Prune shrubs that flower in the Winter, cut back dead growth from perennials and trim hedges (but always make sure to check for nesting birds). This helps to encourage more flower growth, keeps the plant healthy and free of rot and pests and encourages stronger stems as well as keeping the size of the plants manageable for your garden.

Our Okatsune Secateurs would be your perfect companion to prune any plants you have in the garden. Their razor-sharp teeth will help make clean cuts; this helps with faster healing as well as preventing disease. Our secateurs cut so precisely that it helps maintain regular growth, keeping your plants strong.

Care for your lawn:

Start to regularly mow it and feed it with spring lawn fertilizer and sow grass seed where you have bare patches.

Wildlife:

As much as you love your garden try to make sure the wildlife love it too. A wildlife friendly garden helps maintain a healthy ecosystem. Install bee and insect hotels, provide fresh water sources where possible and plant nectar rich flowers that bees are able to buzz in and out of.

Watch the weather:

We are not quite out of the woods yet as April can still be unpredictable for weather. Be prepared to protect plants if there is sudden frost, water if we have any dry spells and check that all taller plants have a stake in them to protect them from any strong winds.

We hope this gives you brief idea of what you might need to do in your garden, the work you do now will set the tone for the rest of the year, all the planning and care you put in now will help your garden throve this, Summer.

Happy Gardening!