The Sevenoaks Garden Centre share their top tips on what we can be doing in our gardens this April…
April is the start of Spring and exciting times lay ahead although we are all currently confirmed to our homes. Whether you have an apartment or a home with a garden there are plenty of things we can be doing to put some colour and enrichment into our lives.
April is a great month to start planting fruit and veg, especially if you have a greenhouse or indoor space to get plants started to avoid those last few frosty nights.
There are many things that can be planted in April but just ensure any young plants are protected from frosts until you are sure that temperatures remain above 5-7 degrees of an evening. This will ensure their best chance of survival.
For those of us who wish to sow seeds indoors, the following work well on windowsills, conservatories or greenhouses
Vegetables
- Beans (eg. runner beans)
- Marrow
- Courgette
- Squash
- Sweetcorn
- Tomatoes
For those of us who have an outside space, you can sow the following directly into the soil which is in either a container, bed or border.
- Beetroot
- Brussels Sprouts
- Cabbage
- Carrots
- Leeks
- Lettuce
- Onions
- Garlic
- Parsnips
- Potatoes
- Radishes
- Shallots
- Spinach
Fruit
A lot of fruit tends to ripen nearer the autumn, but April is a great time of year to plant young fruit trees and bushes in time for the harvesting season. Some great ones to start with include apples, pears, strawberries and raspberries.
It is a good idea to mulch around the trees with well-rotted manure and to take any corrective action on any pests that you might see.
It is a pretty time of the year as your fruit trees should now be in blossom. To protect the crop, you might wish to place fleece over the flowers if a frost is expected.
For those with summer and autumn fruiting raspberries, these should be cut back now to approximately 23cm from the base.
It will also be worthwhile to cover strawberry plants with cloches to encourage early flowers.
Bulbs
All of your early flowering bulbs, for example, daffodils should have any faded flowers removed. For the smaller bulbs like crocus, muscari and snowdrops, these can be left with the flowers on as this will allow them to naturalise.
In mild areas you will be able to plant your dahlia tubers out at the end of the month but keep begonia tubers in a greenhouse for the time being.
Lawn Care
Now is a great time to prepare your lawns for the summer months by raking out any dead moss and applying lawn feed. When mowing the grass you want to keep the blades still fairly high and dig out any perennial weeds.
This will now enable you to sow new lawns and repair the bare patches.”
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