There’s plenty to do around the garden this time of year, especially if it has been neglected a little over the cold, winter months.
Make sure you mow your lawn with the mower blades set at a medium height. Sow seeds wherever you have any bare patches. Apply a fertiliser to established lawns and then follow this up by using a selective weedkiller a couple of weeks later.
Prune lavender and forsythia.
Apply a mulch to roses and a weedkiller if necessary.
Remove any faded blooms from rhododendron bushes and mulch with peat or garden compost.
Support taller perennials with bamboo sticks or some other support. Plant dahlia tubers and harden off chrysanthemum cuttings. Feed carnations and pinks with general fertiliser.
Finish sowing hardy and half-hardy annuals. Move seedlings from earlier sowings to a cold frame.
Dead-head early spring bulbs which have finished flowering and plant gladioli bulbs and acidantheras. Support lilies as buds start to form.
If you have a pond, then now is the time to plant water lilies and other pond plants. Overgrown lilies can be lifted and divided.