There are no excuses; it’s well and truly time to get busy in the garden. April is the most exciting month of the year in the gardening calendar. Things suddenly begin to look green and vibrant and the warmer days and lighter evenings can gladden the heart of every gardener. So, it’s time to shake off the winter blues and get stuck into the shrubbery!

The days are warming up but nights can still be cold, so be aware of sharp frosts. It’s tempting to put out tender young plants but be careful – don’t buy bedding plants until next month, unless you have a greenhouse. With the warmer weather and spring rains, now we will almost certainly see an increase the gardener’s chief foes – slugs and snails. The enemy does have its favourites: delphiniums, lupins and hostas make a very tasty meal for a slug! There are several organic ways of dealing with these little pests. A jar of beer in the ground with the lip just proud of the surface will attract them to death by drowning. Using a barrier of Vaseline around the lip of a container works well, or try gritty gravel or egg shells to protect vulnerable plants.

If you didn’t give your plants an organic feed last month, a chemical fertiliser will give them an instant boost now, just when they need it. All plants need nutrients to survive, but there’s no need to feed absolutely everything every year. Trees and shrubs, for example, will grow quite happily for years, provided the ground is prepared properly when planting. The areas of the garden that most need fertilisers every year are the vegetables, fruit patch, annual borders and plants in containers. There are many varieties available in garden centres. Choose a slow-release fertiliser and sprinkle over your borders. The rain should take it down into the roots of the plants.

If your flower borders have ‘bare patches’, now is a good time to sow hardy annuals outdoors. Examples are love-in-a-mist, calendula, poppy, love-in-a-mist, larkspur, poached egg flowers, lavatera, alyssum, cornflower, night scented stock, and climbers like nasturtium and scented sweet pea. There are lots to choose from and it’s a simple job of sowing them straight into the ground. Make sure the soil is well prepared and free of weeds and sprinkle them where you wish. The only thing you need to do is make sure they are well-watered and kept weed-free. If you’re not sure which are weeds, a good rule of thumb is the weeds are usually the seedlings growing the quickest!