Snail trails & tribulations
Gastropods – that is, slugs and snails – love this time of year, when they can feast on tender spring growth. Mary Lovell-Smith says protect your plants with pellets, beer traps or night-time patrols with torch in hand.
Ornamentals
Protect shoots of perennials such as delphiniums and hosta, and lilies from slugs and snails, remembering that while chemical repellents are effective, less toxic ones can be kinder to the environment. Try broken egg shells around precious plants, beer in saucers, or night patrols with a torch to remove them by hand.
Plant up hanging baskets, window baskets and containers.
Spray roses to protect against mildew and blackspot.
Tie in shoots of young climbing roses. Keeping them as horizontal as possible will encourage flowering shoots from low down.
Feed roses and other shrubs with a balanced fertiliser.
Young hedges need to be trimmed about three times a year to both shape and thicken them. Newly planted hedging should be cut severely to encourage growth.
Lightly trim lavender, santolina, teucrium and curry plant (helichrysum) to stop them getting woody.
Time is running out to trim back winter-stemmed shrubs such as salix and cornus. Prune back hard all last year’s growth.
Edibles
Sow beetroot, carrots, cauliflower, kohl rabi, radish, rocket and other salad greens, silverbeet, spinach, spring onions and turnips directly into well-prepared beds – this means beds which are weed-free and worked to a fine tilth. No-dig gardeners can sow in seed-raising beds and transplant into main beds when seedlings are large enough. Great care is needed to not damage roots transplanting root vegetables.
In heavy soil, try shorter and ball-shaped varieties of carrots, beets and parsnips.
Plant main crop potatoes and mound up early ones – before their leaves get too high and bushy.
Sow aubergines, courgettes, peppers, pumpkins and tomatoes under cover for planting out when all danger of frost is past.
While globe artichokes may be sown now, they take such a long time to get to a decent size that propagation by taking rooted suckers off existing plants is a better option. Cut these off when about 20cm tall and replant in rich, well-drained soil in a sunny spot. Heads should not be harvested from these plants until their second year.
Fruit
Apply a thick layer of compost or well-rotted animal manure to berries and currants, as a feed supplement and to help retain soil moisture.
Ensure strawberries are kept weed-free. Hand-weeding is best so as not to damage the plants’ roots, which are close to the surface.
Feed citrus.