• Divide and replant snow drops and aconite when they have finished flowering.

• If you’re planning new beds and borders make sure they’re dug over with plenty of well-rotted farmyard manure and are free of all weeds in time for planting.

• Now’s the time to get on top of weeding so that weeds aren’t depriving your plants of valuable nutrients they need for new growth.

• When your lawn starts to dry out after the winter months, rake it over to remove any dead grass, re-seed the bare patches and give it a spring feed with a specific lawn feed.

Pruning and Fertilising
• Prune buddleias back pretty hard, aiming for an open framework of old wood. This will stimulate new growth and also allow air to circulate preventing disease.

• Silver leaved shrubs should be pruned, but only when the worst of the frosts are past. Prune santolinas, sage, curry plants and phlomis.

• Dress all the planting beds with a suitable fertiliser, especially herbaceous perennials. It’s also an ideal time to plant new herbaceous perennials. If planting new ones just make sure the risk of freezing has passed and that the soil isn’t waterlogged.

• Prune the flowering shoots of winter flowering shrubs such as Jasminum nudiflorum and cut back to ground level shrubs grown for winter bark colour such as Cornus and Salix.

• Prune bush roses by removing all weak, inward-growing, dead and diseased branches, then cut back shoots to an outward facing bud between 2-8cms of last season’s growth to give you a well proportioned and open centred shrub.

Sven Wombwell

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