Garden Diary

April Garden Diary

By April the garden is waking up quickly. Longer days and warming soil temperatures encourage fresh growth across beds, borders and lawns. It’s an exciting time for gardeners, but also a month where a little attention now can make a noticeable difference to how the garden performs through the summer.

 Beds and Borders

As plants begin to grow strongly, it’s a good time to tidy borders and encourage healthy development. Remove the old flower heads from hydrangeas to reveal the fresh buds forming beneath. Buddleia and hardy fuchsias also respond well to pruning at this stage, helping stimulate vigorous growth and plenty of flowers later in the season.

However, resist the temptation to prune everything in sight. Many spring-flowering shrubs such as forsythia, kerria and winter jasmine produce their blooms on wood formed the previous year. Pruning these now would remove the developing flowers, so wait until after flowering before trimming them back into shape.

Spring also brings renewed activity from slugs and snails, which can quickly damage young shoots from plants such as hostas, delphiniums and dahlias. Some gardeners patrol the garden at dusk, while others prefer biological controls such as nematodes, which work beneath the soil surface and are particularly effective in showery weather.

Patio Gardening

Containers and patio areas can quickly become focal points in April. Once spring bulbs have finished flowering in pots, plant the entire root ball into borders where they can continue growing and return next year.

Patios are also excellent places for growing fruit in containers. Compact varieties of figs, peaches, cherries and apricots perform well in large pots with good compost and regular feeding. Many modern vegetable varieties have also been bred specifically for container growing, making them both productive and decorative on sunny patios.

Lawn Care

By April the familiar sound of lawn mowers returns as grass growth begins to accelerate. Regular mowing is the key to a healthy lawn, but avoid cutting too short. Removing no more than a third of the grass height in any one cut helps maintain strong, dense turf.

Early spring feeding plays a key role in how a lawn performs through the rest of the year. A balanced treatment helps grass recover from winter, thicken naturally and compete more effectively against weeds and moss as growth resumes.

At Greener Gardens, lawn care begins with understanding the lawn itself. Soil condition, drainage, shade and usage all influence both the treatments applied and their timing. This condition-led approach avoids unnecessary applications and focuses on building stronger lawns over the long term.

Many lawn issues seen later in the season — thinning grass, persistent moss or uneven colour — often stem from incorrect spring care or from no proactive care at all. Taking time to identify the underlying causes now helps ensure the right approach and makes the rest of the year simpler and more effective.

Grow Your Own

April is one of the busiest months in the vegetable garden as seed sowing gets fully underway. If March was cold, you can still sow crops such as parsnips, peas, onions, summer cabbages and cauliflower.

Later in the month, leeks, Brussels sprouts and autumn cabbage can be sown in a seedbed ready for transplanting later. Improving soil structure with organic matter before sowing will help seedlings establish quickly.

Strawberries will soon begin to flower and may need protection if late frosts are forecast. A simple covering overnight can prevent damage to the developing crop.

Garden Diary is written by John Draper of Greener Gardens, your local independent BASIS Lawn Assured specialist and past Chairman of the UK Lawn Care Association.