April jobs in the garden
Bulbs
Dahlias, crinums, eucomis, lilies are amongst many of the summer flowering bulbs that can still be purchased to plant direct into the garden or containers in April.
Buy Oriental and Trumpet lilies to give you fragrance and great colour in the garden.
Gladioli, lilies and taller dahlias are ideal to plant for cut-flower production.
It will soon be time to plant out dahlias, cannas and begonias that were started off in the greenhouse or conservatory. Harden off gradually and plant out in mid-Late April.
Slugs and snails are now becoming active so use slug tape or organic slug control to keep them off the young shoots.
Continue to feed spring flowering bulbs with a high phosphate and potash fertiliser such as bonemeal or tomato feed whilst they still have green leaves.
Trees, shrubs, flowers and lawns
Trim back shrubs and give lavender a good short back and sides.
Plant out bare root trees for hedges and potted/ shrubs and tree, keep well-watered in the first year.
Prune fruit trees.
Lawns are starting to grow AND will need cutting but keep the mower blade quite high on the first cut. Apply lawn feed and moss kill (if needed) to get those lawns started off.
Fruit, vegetables, flowers and herbs
Plant main crop potatoes onion sets and shallots. Plant tomatoes and cucumbers in greenhouses.
Sow into veg patches seeds such as salad leaves, carrots, peas, beetroot, spinach and chard. The salad crops can also be grown in protected greenhouses to harvest sooner.
Sow hardy annuals such as marigolds, poppies etc and also plant wild flower seeds into those areas you are leaving to naturalise.
This will be a great habitat for insects in the coming months.
Plant out sweet peas and plant hollyhock seeds.
Garden wildlife
Birds and bees benefit greatly from access to food and clean water. For birds and also leave small twigs and bits of light debris so that they can build nests with.
Feed fish more regularly as the water temperature increase, also ensure you have a ramp for animals such as hedgehogs to get out of the pond if they fall in.
Feed hedgehogs with dog food if you have them in your garden