Broadly speaking
Edibles
Once autumn-sown broad beans start flowering, keep them well watered. Pinching out the tips after the first flowers have set will both deter blackfly and aphids, and encourage more pods to set.
Broad beans, especially those growing in exposed gardens, usually need some support. Bamboo stakes at each corner of the patch with string stretched around the perimeter should do the trick.
Plant maincrop potatoes and sow spinach.
Sow peas, watering the soil well the day before. In light soil, or dry spots, peas are best sown in trenches filled with compost. Keep the top of the trench below the surrounding soil.
Prune fig trees to shape the tree, and to remove crossing, damaged or dying branches. Also cut off all suckers coming up from the base of the tree.
Top-up raised beds with compost.
Seedlings
Seedlings in trays can get weak and leggy (etiolated) if kept growing inside for too long.
Once they get a centimetre or two high, take them outside for a few hours to get sunlight. Each day give them a little longer. This will also harden them off – that is, acclimatise them to the vagaries of outdoor life.
The wind, and even rain will also help them get sturdier. In response to such natural touch stimuli, most plants slow their growth and develop shorter, thicker stems. This response, called thigmomorphogenesis, can be replicated by lightly running your fingers over the tops of seedlings.
Once planted in garden, be vigilant and do not let the soil around seedlings get dry. The smaller the seedlings the quicker a lack of water will kill them, or cause them to go to seed.
Ornamentals
Cut back azaleas, camellias and magnolias after flowering to encourage new growth for next season’s blooms.
Divide bamboo by splitting apart clumps with an axe or mattock, then replanting.
Sow new lawns or repair existing ones.
Water lilies may be divided and replanted as soon as new growth begins.
Pot plants
Although houseplants should be watered more frequently now winter is over, overwatering can be fatal to many, so let the surface of the soil dry a little between waterings, and never let the plant sit in water. (Although there are exceptions, such as venus flytraps.)
Spring is the best time to repot pot plants which usually outgrow their containers every two or so years. Transfer to a larger, clean pot and top up with potting mix.
– Mary Lovell-Smith