As spring bulbs finish flowering, a light feed will encourage them to build up strength for next season’s performance. After exhausting themselves with their floral display, the period immediately after is the most important time for fattening the bulb again. Never remove the foliage until it starts to die off naturally and even tying the long leaves into naff little bundles affects the natural replenishment process.

• Dahlia clumps can be lifted and divided now. They perform much better if the clump is tended to every few years so will reward you for your efforts. Congested clumps tend to fall apart too easily when they put on all the top growth.
• Grasses may be used as low maintenance plants but it doesn’t mean they are no maintenance plants. They can start to look very scruffy and unkempt and develop dead patches in garden situations unless you lift them and split them up occasionally, replacing them in soil which you have dug over and cultivated. Dividing now means that they will spring into healthy fresh growth immediately. It also helps to groom them once a year, pulling out the dead foliage either by hand or with a rake.
• Don’t delay on pruning and feeding feijoa bushes. They will produce larger fruit if you take a little care with them and keep the bush reasonable open.
• Make sure you have your old raspberry canes cut off and cleaned up before the new growth gets away any further. It is time for their spring feed.
• If you have young strawberry plants, it is usual to remove the first round of flowers so that the plants can build up strength and size before they pour all their energy into fruiting.
• You can still plant onions, carrots and beet direct into the garden. The onion family goes beyond the usual brown skinned variety (Pukekohe Long Keepers are the most common variety here though goodness knows what the cheapies that are imported from China are, let alone what chemicals they have been exposed to). Try shallots and red onions as well. Onion thinning can later be used as spring onions.
• Sow corn, courgettes and tomatoes into containers to get the leap on the great Labour Weekend plant out tradition. It is a little early for planting green beans direct into the garden unless you have a really favoured position, but they too can be started in containers if you want early crops.

If you are planning a new garden, you may wish to take notice of the dictum from Philip Miller from 1724:

The area of a handsom Garden may take up about thirty or forty Acres, not more.