Essential Gardening Jobs for Early Spring

Spring is here, and it's time to roll up your sleeves and get your garden ready for the season! As the weather warms up, you can start planting trees, shrubs, and perennials, giving them a good head start with a little help from the soil. You'll want to tidy up your roses and give them a good prune, too. Your lawn might need a light trim, and you can start sowing seeds for some early veggies like peas and lettuce. It's also the perfect time to get your fruit plants settled in, along with prepping for summer blooms. Whether you're in the garden or the greenhouse, there's always something to do to bring your space to life!

Ornamentals outdoors

If soil conditions are suitable, planting deciduous trees, shrubs and climbers can be carried out when weather permits. Adding mycorrhiza into the planting hole will help establishment.

Lift, divide and replant early-emerging herbaceous perennials such as Helenium, Monarda and Phlox if soil conditions are suitable.

Established bush and climbing roses can be pruned if there is no risk of frost.

Cut away any dead, damaged or diseased wood first. Apply a granular fertiliser as top dressing after pruning and fork it lightly into the soil surface.

Check the ties and supports on climbing, rambling and standard roses and apply a granular fertiliser, fork lightly into the soil.

Prune winter-flowering shrubs like Chimonanthus, Hamamelis, Lonicera and Mahonia as the flowers die.

Ranunculus and Anemone corms can be planted in a sheltered spot. Gladioli can be planted out in sheltered positions.

Prepare new seed beds by lightly forking and raking the soil when conditions are suitable. Apply a suitable top dressing a few days before sowing, where it is required.

Lawns and Meadows

When the surface conditions are suitable, cut the lawn with the mower blades on a high setting.

The lawn edges can be trimmed at the same time.

A few days after cutting, you can treat with a moss killer if the soil is dry enough,

Where a new lawn is to be grown from seed, give the soil a final raking so that it is ready for sowing when the soil is dry enough.

Vegetables

Cut Savoy cabbages, Brussels sprout tops and turnip tops.

Give a top dressing of nitrogen to spring cabbage and winter lettuce.

Sow a selection early varieties vegetables, but only sow small quantities to reduce the risk of crop failure, provide a regular succession of vegetables and avoid a glut.

Continue fortnightly sowings of early varieties of peas to provide a continuity of crop.

Now is the time to start regular sowings of lettuces, carrots and radishes.

Supports for runner beans and climbing French beans can be erected now.

Sow broad beans and onions outside. If the onion seeds are sown thinly, the seedlings can be left until the stems begin to swell. The thinnings can be used as salad onions.

Plant out the seedlings of broad beans sown in pots in late autumn or early winter.

Sow parsnips as soon as the ground is ready, as they need a long season. Parsnip seed is slow to germinate and you can sow radish or lettuce at the same time in the same drill as a catch crop. These additional sowings will mark the rows and act as a guide for hoeing.

If conditions are favourable, plant the first early potatoes 10cm (4 in). deep and 30cm (1 ft). apart, and 75cm (2.5 ft. between the rows.

Plant Jerusalem artichokes 30cm (1ft). apart in rows and allow 90cm (3ft). between the rows.

Prepare asparagus beds by deep digging and adding generous amounts of well-rotted manure or old compost. Use one-year-old crowns and cover them with 15cm (6 in). of fertile soil after planting.

Mulch between rows of established crops to keep down weeds and conserve moisture.

Prepare new beds for culinary herbs.

Fruit

This is the last opportunity to plant bare-root soft fruit or young fruit trees. If the season is mild, plant out young strawberry plants that were not put into permanent beds last autumn. Where the action of frost has lifted existing plants, firm them in with your heel.

Stake newly-planted fruit trees well and, at the same time, check old stakes and ties that have stood up to the winter winds. If required, renew them before the plants come into leaf and the top growth increases in weight.

Give black currants a spray of Copper Mixture solution. Use Mildew Clear for Edibles to prevent mildew on gooseberries and help to reduce the spread of cane spot on raspberries, loganberries and blackberries.

Put cloches over a few selected strawberry plants to encourage early flowering and fruiting.

Start hoeing between the rows of plants as seedling weeds start to emerge. This can be followed with an organic mulch 10cm (4ins) deep to reduce weed emergence and retain moisture.

As the new buds open on fruit trees, remove and burn the grease bands that have been used to trap the wingless female winter moths.

Glasshouse (including conservatories and polythene structures)

Repot house plants in fresh compost similar to that in which they have been growing. Use a pot one size larger than the previous one. Plants that benefit particularly from this attention are Asparagus sprengeri, Codiaeum, and all types of ferns, palms, smilax and begonias.

Propagation

Start dahlia tubers into growth by putting them in boxes of moist soil or spent compost in a warm place to encourage them to sprout and form shoots to provide cuttings.

Sow melon seeds singly about 2-3cm (1in) deep in deep pots. Keep them in a close atmosphere in a temperature up to 18-20c (65-70f). Encourage the seedlings into growth in a propagating frame. Keep them warm and moist.

For summer displays, sow seeds of half-hardy annuals, such as ageratum, nicotiana, nemesia, zinnias and ten-week stocks.

Move tyour tomato seedlings into pots. Keep the plants growing steadily but not too quickly, otherwise soft, weak and easily damaged growth is produced, which can be prone to pest and disease attack.

Maintenance

Inspect established tree stakes and ties that have stood up to the winter winds. If required, renew them. Also, check ties and supports for climbing plants and wall shrubs, re-tie or replace if necessary.