It feels like a false start to spring this year with some glorious warm weather in the early stages, soon returning to the depths of winter with cold and rain, it has to be said, in rather unwelcome abundance. I must admit, it did feel for a moment like we’d skipped spring altogether and were headed straight into the summer as temperatures in the high 20s saw shorts and pale skin take their first tentative steps outdoors post-winter. It didn’t take long, however, for any thoughts of a balmy spring to derail with over a month’s worth of rain falling in a day and those carefully packed away winter woollies were hastily donned once more. Such is the unpredictability of the weather, it’ll surely be hot again tomorrow!
From a garden perspective, the rain is good for the moisture in your garden beds just as they’re springing to life. Hopefully, you haven’t stepped outside to find an absolute mess of soggy, dead growth and erratic lumps of decomposing leaves, but if you have, don’t despair, as now is the time to get out there and fix it. Dust off the pressure washer while you’re at it and give hard surfaces a blast to clean away any winter gunk.
Use a weed-and-feed on your lawns to strike at those pesky winter weeds and support the explosion of growth soon to come. And, any areas of poor drainage you may have overlooked can also be attended to as part of your spring lawn care regimen. If you find that your lawn as a whole is just one soggy mass of poor drainage and squelching footsteps, then you might like to aerate it with a garden fork or other more specialised tools followed by a top-dress with some sand.
Now is a good time to cut back any hedges that have gone a bit leggy or need a reduction in height. Cutting now will stimulate new growth and, even though you’ll find you’ll be cutting them again in a few weeks as a result, it’ll allow you to wrangle them back into a nicer shape over the coming months. Camellias that have finished flowering can be pruned back and shaped with minimal risk to next year’s buds, but don’t leave it too much longer or you will risk cutting into next year’s display.
And why not take some time in September to plant something new in the garden? The soil should be perfect for any new additions, but remember to retain all this moisture for the weeks ahead by topping up or laying out some new mulch before the hot weather returns – which we all know it will!
September jobs to do now:
- Plant some spring flowers
- Feed lawns
- Re-pot or refresh container plants
- Prune and feed citrus trees
