Revitalise Your Garden

Spring cleaning isn’t just for inside the home.with winter calling it a year and the warmer weather easing back at last, your embattled outdoor areas will be ready for a good sprucing up. Now is the perfect time to give your garden some extra love.

The expert team at your local Plants Plus garden centre knows how to wake up gardens after their winter slumber. Here are some hassle-free hints to help get you started in time for spring.

Love your lawn

Limited sunshine, low temperatures and wet conditions affect lawn health throughout winter. If your lawn is looking brown in parts and rogue weeds have cropped up everywhere, bring your lawn back to optimum health by both weeding and fertilising it at the same time with Earthcore Weed and Feed.

Enrich that soil

After a fall of rain, dig some good quality fertiliser into your garden. As it breaks down, it will filter into the soil and get absorbed by growing roots that will use it to fuel growth and flowering. This is your best guarantee for a glorious summer garden or harvest. Plants Plus’ Groganic Soil Improver is easy and safe to use and improves all soil types for enhanced plant growth.

Boosting bloom

It’s time to plant those summer flowering seedlings like Petunias, Snapdragons,

Marigolds and Impatiens. Plants Plus has a stunning array of summer flower seedlings as well as warm-season vegetable seedlings including capsicum, chillies, beans, eggplant and pumpkin to choose from. If you are after fragrance, lavender or gardenias offer a divine spring scent.

Invite some friends

Attracting insects that will benefit your garden is easy. Ladybugs are a healthy addition as their larva feed on aphids. Invite ladybugs to join the party with plants they love such as coriander, chamomile, marigolds, sweet alyssum, and garlic chives. It’s also good to encourage earthworms to stick around, as they help to aerate and increase water retention in the soil. Some yummy compost will do the trick to attract these gardener’s best friends. If you are in need of a compost bin and some advice on home-made compost, your local experts at Plants Plus will have you covered.

Prune and improve

Pruning encourages fresh, new growth from plants that have already bloomed or incurred frost damage over the winter. Prune back old growth from the base of the plant. Don’t worry about cutting back new growth, but as a general rule avoid cutting back more than a third of the plant. Investing in good quality secateurs and trimmers will make the job easier. Removing spent flowers regularly will also ensure annuals, perennials and shrubs keep on blooming over the months ahead.

Get more fom your mulch

Get the gloves on and work your way around the garden grabbing out all those pesky weeds. Then, a quick way to retard weed growth, retain moisture, insulate plant roots and prevent soil from crusting over is to lay down good quality mulch. Go for a mulch that is contaminant free, making for a nurturing and healthy option. Take things a step further and select coloured mulch that suits your garden theme. Earthcore’s Designer mulch is available in black, natural and red.