GARDENING TIPS FROM HILARY BARBER

It’s the start of the growing season after the cold and rain of the winter - Happy gardening!

1. Prune any shrub and bush roses, to an outward facing bud, and remove old and damaged wood. You want to end up with a goblet shape with no crossed or congested stems, to allow good air movement all around. This prevents disease and promotes good flowering. Give your roses a good feed after pruning (this applies to all shrubs after pruning). My preferred feed is organic seaweed fertiliser or chicken manure pellets.

2. Hard-prune summer-flowering shrubs such as buddleia, caryopteris, hardy fuchsia, lavatera, leycesteria and perovskia. You can also prune rosemary and lavender but just lightly as it will not re-grow from the old wood.

3. Cutting back willow and dogwood (cornus spp.) will maintain new colourful stems for next winter.

4. Coppice or pollard eucalyptus, catalpa and paulownia to keep them a manageable size and provide attractive foliage.

5. Renovate overgrown honeysuckle or jasmine and prune summer-flowering clematis to shoots about 1ft from the ground, even if new fat buds are sprouting on old stems.

6. Lawns will also need some attention. Scarify with a spring tine rake to remove moss and thatch, spike with a fork (to improve drainage) and top dress with 3 parts sand mixed with 4 parts loam. Brush the top dressing in with a soft brush, and if re-seeding is necessary then either mix the seed with the top dressing or sow afterwards.

7. Remove one or two inches of compost from containers with permanent planting and top- dress with fresh compost, and feed them. I use organic fertilisers in the garden because they promote the development of mycorrhizal fungi, but it is OK to use mineral based fertilisers eg Growmore in pots.

8. Summer-flowering herbaceous perennials can be cut back and divided to maintain healthy, vigorous plants, but make sure they do not dry out when reestablishing.

9. Deadhead daffodils as they fade, but allow the foliage to die down naturally, allowing the nutrients to be drawn back down into the bulb

10. Hoe and mulch weeds to keep them under control early in the growing season

11. Herbaceous perennials are starting to emerge, so protect new growth from slugs and snails. Please don’t use metaldehyde based slug pellets because these are disastrous for the birds, hedgehogs and other wildlife

12. Plant asparagus crowns, Jerusalem artichokes, garlic, onion sets, shallots and strawberry plants.

13. If you haven’t cut back your ornamental grasses, leaving the seed heads for the birds, do so this month, to allow for fresh new growth