April Is The Natural Time To Plan

By Author: Jean Vernon1
Total Articles: 31
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April is a busy month in the garden. Even though spring is late this year, there are still signs of the season about to start in earnest. April is the month for planting, sowing, feeding and weeding, so make sure you spend as much time as you can preparing the garden for the season ahead.

April is the natural time to plant. Every keen gardener would agree that there is always room for a few more plants. A visit to the garden centre during April will reveal a wide choice of fabulous spring flowering trees and shrubs. These will have been grown in containers and although they can be planted almost all year round, it is much better to plant them in spring or autumn. Improve the planting soil with a quality planting compost, this will help the plant roots grow easily into the surrounding soil and provide essential drainage and nutrients to the roots. Water thoroughly after planting even if it has rained as this will settle the soil and compost around the roots and help your plant establish more quickly. After a week or so, top up the compost around the roots where it has settled and mulch the area with an appropriate mulch.

Give ...
... trees and shrubs a spring feed to support strong and healthy growth. Use a general balanced feed such as growmore, it's granular so can be sprinkled around the base of your plants. Organic gardeners can choose pelleted chicken manure, fish, blood & bone, seaweed meal or bone meal.

Weed around the base of trees and shrubs, removing any grass and perennial weeds that cover the root area. Then apply a thick mulch around the base after heavy rainfall to suppress weed growth, improve the soil moisture retention and insulate the roots from extremes of temperature.

Feed flowering shrubs and roses with a dedicated rose food to encourage plenty of rich green foliage and masses of wonderful flowers.

Keep a watch on early shoots for the first signs of pests. Many pests such as aphids coincide their lifecycles with the growth pattern of your plants, so as your roses and shrubs burst into growth this provides vital food for the first generations of this year's pests. Be vigilant and deal with them as soon as you see them.

If you want to garden organically, feed the birds to encourage them into the garden and plant plenty of brightly flowered annuals to attract beneficial insects into the garden.

Many shrubs can be pruned in April. Dogwoods (Cornus) respond particularly well to hard pruning, as this encourages plenty of fresh coloured stems to develop. Spring flowering shrubs such as forsythia, flowering currants, weigela, deutzia and early clematis should all be pruned after flowering as they all actually flower on stems made last year. If you remove these stems before the flowers have opened you will stop the plants from flowering this season.

Plants that flower on this year's stems should be pruned in early spring to encourage plenty of new growth and flowers this season, these include roses, the butterfly bush (buddleia), Hydrangea paniculata, and caryopteris. Feed after pruning.

For easy crops to grow in April choose a mixed salad seed that can be sown weekly in small pots of compost in a greenhouse, cold frame or even on a windowsill. You can easily grow enough for several family servings of salad from one packet of seed and you can't get it any fresher than home sown salad, simply pick it on demand.

In a cool greenhouse or propagator sow tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, courgettes, runner beans, French beans, sweetcorn and half-hardy annuals. Sow into small flowerpots full of good quality seed compost, or for large seeds such as sweet peas, beans and peas use Root Trainers that allow the roots to develop undisturbed until they are ready to plant out.

Outdoors, if the soil is crumbly and not stodgy, sow broad beans, leeks, summer cabbages, cauliflower, summer spinach, French beans, peas, celery, parsnip, and Brussels sprouts. Make a shallow trench in the soil about 1in (2.5cm) deep, line the base with a loam based multi-purpose compost, water gently and then sprinkle the seed thinly on top. Cover over with more compost and protect with cloches or fleece tunnels.

Beetroot, parsnip, peas, spinach, turnip, lettuce, carrots and radish can be sown in shallow drills lined with compost, without extra protection. However if you are in an exposed position, or the weather is particularly harsh, a covering of fleece or a cloche will help speed germination.

Plant onion sets out into the garden 10-15cm apart.

Plan to sow a few seeds of each vegetable every two weeks so that they mature at different rates to provide a succession of produce for the table. Some crops such as carrots can be sown in small amounts right through until July so that you get plenty of fresh carrots all through the summer and autumn and into winter too.

Feed permanent crops such as herbs, artichokes, asparagus, rhubarb and fruit in early spring with a balanced fertiliser such as growmore.

Continue to plant potato tubers 5-6in (12.5-15cm) deep and about 12in (30cm) apart. Cover over with fleece to protect emerging shoots from frost. As shoots appear cover them over with more soil. This encourages more tubers to form underground.

Keep the garden weed free. Weeds not only compete for any available food and water, but they also provide shelter for a number of garden pests and diseases. Dig out any perennial weeds making sure to remove all the roots and hoe off any annual weed seedlings as they appear. Always hoe when the soil is slightly dry and on a sunny day so that the uprooted weeds seedlings will quickly wither.

Protect fruit bushes, especially currants and gooseberries from bird damage. Cover with fleece to keep the birds off while the new buds are bursting. Remember to remove the protection as the flower buds start to form, otherwise pollinating insects will not reach the flowers, and you will not get any fruit.

Pot up Dahlia tubers, Begonia corms and rooted cuttings and keep in a frost-free environment until the last frost has passed. Choose other summer flowering bulbs such as lilies, gladioli and Eucomis from the wide range on offer at garden.

If the soil is still warm and not waterlogged then continue sowing annual bedding plants in their flowering positions in the garden. If you are new to gardening it may be better to grow them in a greenhouse or cold frame and get them established before planting out. Sow them into pots of seed compost as these are formulated to give the seeds the very best possible start and everything that they need to start growing.

Don't be tempted into putting out half-hardy bedding plants into the garden. A warm spell can be very encouraging; especially to beginner gardeners, but at this time of year a cold snap won't be far away. Keep them in a frost free greenhouse and harden them off before planting out. If your plants are shooting early they may need a little additional protection. Place a layer of horticultural fleece over any plants that are unexpectedly beginning to develop strong spring growth, especially if a frost threatens.

Dead head any early spring flowers and bulbs as they die off. Feed the plants after flowering with a balanced general fertiliser such as growmore so that the plants can build up the bulb for next years' flowers. Don't be tempted to cut off the leaves of bulbs that have flowered, simply bend over the foliage to ground level and allow them to dry out and wither naturally. The leaves manufacture essential food reserves to ensure that the bulbs can over winter and flower again next spring.

Divide overcrowded perennial plants and replant the pieces around the garden.

Check on overwintering plants such as geraniums and fuchsias in the greenhouse. It's too early to put them outside but they may be sprouting new growth that is perfect for taking cuttings. Pot the plants up into fresh and start to water them gently, ensuring that they are not too wet and not allowed to dry out either. As the new shoots start to develop take softwood cuttings.

If you are growing your container plants from seed then make sure you sow them now so they are established by early June. There's a huge variety that can be sown during April and May that will flower this year. Alternatively take cuttings of existing plants or visit the garden centre and choose some contrasting plants for containers. These will need greenhouse protection until the danger of frost has passed.

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