Eight spring jobs to do in your garden now

Until recently 2025 has been WET, leaving many of our gardens looking sad and uninviting. The welcome warmer weather and blossom on the trees and in hedgerows are now making things seem a lot more cheerful. When the sun comes out many of us jump at the chance to spend a bit of time in the garden and – particularly if you’re thinking about selling this year – now is the time to lavish a bit of love on your outdoor spaces. So what jobs are worth cracking on with to help your garden look its best by summer?

Give your lawns a bit of tlc

The grass will need a cut around about now, but not too short, just give it a light mow to start with. This encourages good root growth and makes grass healthier and more able to resist a summer drought. It is also worth giving the lawn a good scratch with a wire rake to remove thatch and moss. This lets light and water get to the soil and to the roots of the grass and helps it to grow back thicker than ever.

Display colourful flowers

Brightly coloured tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils are winners for bringing joy to a space. And if your garden isn’t big enough for borders or beds, containers are an easy and cost-effective way to give a patio or terrace a boost. If you do have daffodils and tulips growing in your garden, never cut back, tie or tidy the leaves of any bulbs. Let them die back naturally as next year’s flower is being created by the photosynthesis of the foliage. Wait until at least June when the last trace of green has gone, and then it’s safe to cut away the dead leaves.

Sow annual seeds

Early spring is the perfect time to sow annual seeds, such as cornflowers, poppies, and nigella. Nothing could be easier. Just put the seeds in the palm of your hand, throw them directly into the beds, then wait for a show-stopping display of colour in a few months time. Keep the soil damp while they germinate and thin them out as they grow if they look too crowded.

Prune roses and hydrangeas

Early spring is also the best time to prune roses, hydrangeas, and clematis. Don’t be afraid of damaging the plant, just follow the simple rule of always cutting back to something, either a side shoot or leaf bud. The reason for pruning is to encourage new growth that will in turn produce lots of flowers and, in climbers such as clematis, to stop the flowers being produced higher and higher up the plant leaving the lower portion bare.

Plant shrubs

If your soil is ready, now is a good time to plant and move things around. ‘Ready’ means warm enough and you’ll know this by touch. If a handful of earth feels cold, then seeds will not germinate, and roots will not grow. If it feels warm, holds together when squeezed and yet can easily be crumbled then it is ideal. Early spring can be too early to plant out young seedlings, but is a perfect time for planting woody shrubs so that the roots can start to grow before the demands of new foliage kick in. These are plants that will hopefully be in the garden for years to come, so it is worth planting them carefully. Remove all weeds and dig a shallow hole about 9 inches deep. No compost or soil improver is needed, but water well before mulching thickly with good compost.

Prepare your allotment or veg garden

Never sow any seeds outside if the ground feels cold to touch. Sow seeds such as cabbage, lettuce, celery, beetroot, and tomatoes under cover. If warm and dry enough, sow broad beans, beetroot, rocket, spinach, mizuna, parsnips, radish, and winter lettuce.

Chit potatoes and plant out at the end of the month if the ground is dry enough.

Dig in overwintering green manure.

Dig any unprepared ground and/or make raised beds by the end of the month.

Prune gooseberries and red and white currants.

Patrol for pests

Warmer weather brings out the slugs, snails, and aphids, ready to feast on tender young leaves and shoots. Make a ‘slug pub’ for snails. This is a pot filled with beer that’s sunk into the soil, with its rim standing just above the ground so that beneficial beetles and other ‘good’ critters don’t fall in and drown.

Look after wildlife in the garden

Feed garden birds

Most birds are nesting and laying eggs around about now and this time of year is tough for them. Natural food is scarce, so keep feeding them with high energy suet balls, peanuts, and sunflower seeds.

A shout out for hedgehogs

Hedgehogs are now on the Red List of endangered species and gardens are important sanctuaries for them. You can help boost their numbers by leaving a patch of garden to grow wild, so they have somewhere to hide, and by providing water, meat-based pet kibbles or specialist hedgehog food, widely available from pet shops and garden centres. You can also cut CD-sized holes in your fence so hedgehogs can forage and socialise without needing to cross busy roads.

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