April is a wonderful time for gardening as the temperature is neither too cold nor too hot. Whether you’re establishing new plants or transplanting old ones, they will be grateful for the temperate conditions and should settle in quickly.
The leaves should be starting their annual migration to the floor, giving our gardens plenty of time to prepare for the coming winter months. It’s a beautiful design really. The shedding of leaves is nature’s way of depositing a blanket over the soil to keep the ground level plants protected from the cold. Instead of throwing away the extra leaves you find yourself with, throw them into the compost heap. And if you don’t have one, start one this autumn, you won’t regret it.
Lifting and dividing, sowing, planting, cleaning and feeding are just a few of the things you could get busy with in your garden this month. Snails and slugs are particularly troublesome during April, so keep an eye out for them and put down some beer traps to catch them or broken egg shells as a deterrent.
If you’re lifting and dividing your perennials, water them well before lifting and pick a shady spot in the garden to divide them. A neat trick when sowing seeds is to mix them with a little mielie meal which helps them spread more easily, and stops the birds from making off with your seeds.
If you have cyclamen plants from last year then remember to start feeding them every second week as soon buds start appearing – if you’d like to have them re-flower again next year.
Autumn is also great for sowing lawn seed so don’t leave it too late or you’ll have to wait till September to put the spring back in your step!
Indeed it is feeding time for much of your garden, but just remember to not use any fertilisers that are rich in nitrogen, especially in cold and frosty areas, as it stimulates new growth which is not a good idea when it’s cold.
Content provided by Life is a Garden.
