TIPS FROM SANDHILL FARM HOUSE

Regularly reassess your trees and shrubs and cut out any branches crossing or casting too much shade.

Choose scented spring shrubs – Osmanthus x

burkwoodii, witch hazels,

Corylopsis spicata and

Daphne bholua ‘Jacqueline Postill’.

To keep back soil from gravel paths, edge beds with plants such as glossy-leaved wild ginger Asarum europaeum, London pride (Saxifraga x urbium) and evergreen ferns.

Select the best varieties of old favourites such as pulmonaria. ‘Blue Ensign’ has plain green leaves and gentian-blue flowers; ‘Diana Clare’ has silvery-green leaves and violet-blue flowers.

Follow white tulips with long-lasting, showy snapdragons eg Antirrhinum majus ‘Admiral White’ and filigree-leaved umbellifer Ammi visnaga.

Semi-evergreen berberis, eg Berberis thunbergii f. atropurpurea ‘Dart’s Red Lady’, makes a useful low hedge for defining areas.

To decide planting positions for clumps of tulips, dot the borders with upturned plastic pots of the appropriate height to represent them and stand back to assess any gaps.

Honesty (Lunaria annua) is much underrated. Use it for its pretty purple flowers followed by translucent papery seed heads. ‘Chedglow’ and ‘Corfu Blue’ are varieties to look out for. Source Cyclamen hederifolium in pots, as bare corms have often dried out when you buy them.