What a lot can change in a week. Spring really-o truly-o has arrived and for us, the garden visitor season has started. There is a sense of slight panic as we tackle the tasks which we had hoped to get completed in winter. Do not delay any longer on winter pruning (all deciduous trees except cherries and related family members such as flowering peaches and almonds). And if you plan a hard prune and shape on evergreen trees and shrubs, including rhododendrons and vireyas, do it now. The plants will be ready to put on their spring growth and that vigour will help them recover from hard pruning or bad pruning.

• If you have rhododendrons which are looking a little sad, taking out all the dead wood can improve their appearance quickly. If all or most of the leaves are silver, you had a problem with thrips last season (nasty little leaf suckers). You can not turn the silver leaves green again though the new growth will appear in green, to start with at least. In a small garden, you might as well take the whole plant out and replace it with something which is going to stay healthier and not need spraying. In a larger garden, open up around the plant to allow more air movement and light (thrips do not appear to like drafts) and give the plant a heavy hair cut. You can cut back to bare wood on a strong growing plant, to rejuvenate it. Sacrifice the flowers this season for a better looking, bushy plant next season.
• If you are inspired by vegetables, get hold of the Kings Seed Catalogue (also available on line, we are told) for the most interesting range in the country. But shun the strawberry spinach which should be on every regional council banned list and soon.
• It is a critical month in the vegetable garden. Get the ground ready for the summer crops which will be planted out in four to six weeks time. Dig in green crops, clear weeds, cultivate the soil, incorporate compost and generally get the soil rich and friable if you want good results.
• If you are after early harvests, start tomato seeds, corn, melons, cucumbers, capsicums, courgettes and all the rest. But do it in pots under cover. A cloche placed on the intended site now will warm the soil faster for planting out your tender seedlings. It is much cheaper to grow from seed than to buy small plants.
• Keep planting peas and potatoes from now on to ensure a succession of crops. Early salad vegetables can be grown under cloches to give them the additional warmth and protection they need.
• If you have a glasshouse, you need to remember that a sunny day can overheat your tender seedlings remarkably quickly.

 Henry Mitchell summarised the panic of spring when he wrote:

There is nothing like the first hot days of spring when the gardener stops wondering if it’s too soon to plant the dahlias and starts wondering if it’s too late.

If you have been meaning to move any established trees and shrubs, do it as soon as possible. Take as large a root ball as you can and prune back the top to reduce stress on the plant.

• The optimum time for fertilizing plants is just as they are starting to go into their main growth period. So feed sasanqua camellias now but wait until the others near the end of their flowering (when they will put on their new season’s growth). Feed deciduous trees and shrubs when they are breaking into leaf. Don’t waste money on the expensive plastic coated slow release fertilisers which are designed for use in growing container plants, not for topdressing garden plants. Bioboost, nitrophoska blue, blood and bone or similar are much cheaper and all that is needed to give garden plants a boost. Fertilisers do not condition the soil. That is achieved by adding compost, leaf litter or humus.
• With September looming, it is all go in the vegetable garden with planting for spring and summer. Dwarf beans can be started in containers or, if you have a warm, coastal position, you could even sow the first crop directly in the soil. Get new potatoes in, if you haven’t done so yet, as the fear of frost is over for coastal areas at least.
• Peas can be sown now on a fortnightly basis and should be a compulsory addition to any garden with children. They will probably eat the entire crop but what lucky littlies to learn that peas actually grow in the garden rather than in a plastic bag in the freezer. As the peas germinate, they need a support to twine their way around and climb. You can use criss-crossed branches or bamboo if you don’t want to put in a more solid wire or netting frame. Sparrows in particular will take out the young shoots so having some netting to spread over them while they get established will hold the birds at bay.
• Never underestimate the usefulness of a large patch of parsley, especially at this time of the year when the price of fresh vegetables is skyrocketing. Parsley is fearfully good for you and chopped and scattered in quantity on top of meals otherwise lacking in fresh greens can make you feel virtuous. It is also a useful addition to make-do salads if you are lacking in much that is fresh or green. Parsley is biennial – in other words it goes to seed in its second year so you need to establish it two years running to ensure continued supply and to always let one plant seed. Otherwise it looks after itself.

Apparently (according to the Curious Gardener’s Almanac) baseball legend, Babe Ruth, used to wear a cabbage leaf under his cap to keep his head cool in games. This is a fashion which appears to have been slow to catch on amongst our sporting and farming fraternities.

As we write this, we have had three days without rain or wind and to be out in the sun in the garden reminds us of what a pleasure it can be. Now all we need are a couple of degrees of extra warmth and a fine weekend to make all gardeners feel that everything is well in their world.

• If you have small feature conifers (and the dwarves and smaller growing varieties make splendid year round feature plants), cleaning out the accumulated debris from the centre of the plant is not only quite a satisfying task, it is also good for the plant and can reduce disease or pest problems. We have the country’s conifer experts in New Plymouth at Cedar Lodge so the best of advice is available locally. If you are into clipping conifers, be cautious about cutting back to bare wood as many will not sprout again (totara is an exception). It is often safer to renovate a tired plant by finding its established branch structure and featuring its lovely gnarly shapes rather than trying for bushy sentinels.
• Get onto planting woody trees and shrubs soon so they can get established before summer. Garden centres should have the best range available at this time, except possibly for fruit trees which probably sold out a while ago.
• The weeds are on the march. Ignore them at your peril. The nasty seeding bitter cress has already produced its first generation of seeding parents who will continue to multiply exponentially if you let them.
• With spring approaching, carrots, summer spinach and onions can now be direct sown into the vegetable garden. You can still get a good crop of garlic if you missed the mid winter timing, but give this priority if you are still to sow it. Dig in green crops. They need a few weeks to break down before you plant into the area. Really weedy vegetable gardens can be dug over and the weeds treated as a green crop, providing they are not seeding. Don’t think you will get away with digging in the weed seeds.
• It is your last chance to prune grape vines although they will likely weep now because the sap will be rising.

The Quotable Gardener has a whole section of excerpts about lawns. American garden writer, Michael Pollan perhaps came up with the most succinct:

A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule.

There we were hailing the arrival of spring last week, only to be assailed by not one but two frosts at the weekend and more cold weather and rain during the week. But the plants are telling us that spring is on the way and the prettiest time of the year for flowers is just starting.

• Over sow bare patches in lawns. If you feel you must use hormone lawn sprays to get rid of broad leafed weeds, it is best to get onto it as soon as we get a reasonably dry spell. Even with very careful application, some spray drift can occur and badly distort new growth on surrounding plants, particularly deciduous plants so you don’t want to be using hormone sprays when leaf break starts. You can however dig them out by hand at any time and feel virtuous at your decision to avoid the use of chemicals.
• You can still be digging and dividing clumping perennials but the highest priority in the ornamental garden is to get the winter pruning of deciduous plants done.
• Sasanqua camellias can be pruned and shaped now. They are the autumn flowering camellias.
• If you have green crops in the vegetable garden, start digging them in to give them time to break down before you put in the spring and summer crops.
• It is still a little early to get carried away planting in the vegetable garden unless you know what you are doing. Better to use your time preparing the beds and starting the plants in containers and trays to plant out when we have well and truly turned the corner into spring.
• One organic reference book counsels pruning apple trees now but leaving stone fruit trees until just at the point where they are going into growth in early spring. This apparently reduces the chances of disease getting into the cuts. One of the tenets of organic gardening is that healthy plants withstand diseases and pests best so if you are leaning in the organic direction, give a high priority to plant health and care.
• Keep on top of weeds.

Potatoes are of course originally from South America and were introduced to Europe by the Spanish in the middle of the sixteenth century. It would be fair to say that they were not an instant hit. Indeed some even believed that the potato caused leprosy (on account of its lumpy, pockmarked appearance) and the Protestants rejected them because of the South American association with Catholicism. The Germans used to feed them primarily to animals and prisoners while in the same vein, the English gave the potato to the Irish (parsnips were preferred as a staple food in the mother country). How the reputation of the potato has changed over time.

Certainly in the north we are warming up noticeably and the grass is starting to grow again. While we will no doubt get a few more wintery blasts, when the sun comes out it is feeling positively spring-like. In the gardening world, this means that the pressure is about to increase exponentially to finish the winter pruning and clean up round.

• Climbing roses get pruned differently to shrub roses. Tie in the long whippy growths for the first three years after planting and resist the temptation to prune them back. If you can undulate the whips along supports or train them more or less horizontally, it encourages all the side shoots to sprout and hugely increases the flower production. After three years, take out the oldest, woodiest stems and replace them with fresh green whips on a rotational basis. Prune back the side growths from the tied-in whips, to a few buds just as you do with wisteria. Climbing roses are not the easiest of subjects to prune and tend to be very vigorous but you may live to regret it if you fail to prune them hard.
• Beware an explosion in weeds which is just about to happen. If you can stop this first seeding of the season, you will substantially reduce your workload later.
• It is an ideal time for planting woody trees and shrubs. Put in now, they have time to establish themselves before the dryness and heat of summer. People on sandy soils which dry out faster, should take particular note.
• It is time to be vigilant on slugs and snails again. These unwelcome critters will be multiplying up nicely and nipping off all your young shoots. Some intensive control now will reduce numbers later but you do not need to use slug bait like fertiliser. One bait can kill several. Digital control, beer and other environmentally sensitive approaches are also kinder to hedgehogs, birds and the odd suicidal family dog.
• Container plants should be repotted every two years or so, especially if they are somewhat rootbound. It is a good time to attend to them now so they can settle in again before making spring growth. If you are intending to prune the roots to make them fit back into the same pot, then it is even more important that you do it without delay. Hose off all the old potting mix and make sure you prune the top of the plant to reduce stress. Slow release fertilisers were developed for container plants. We don’t recommend their use in the garden generally (there are cheaper, more environmentally friendly options) but we do use them in pot plants. If your plant is destined to stay undercover, halve the recommended rate of fertiliser to avoid burning the plant.
• Early sowings will be starting in the vegetable garden – potatoes in warm areas, peas (pick an early cropping variety), turnips, carrots, parsnips, summer spinach and beet. A reminder that if you are buying asparagus divisions, you are likely to have more success with them if you get them established and growing well in pots before you plant them at the required 10cm plus depth in the garden. Asparagus is a bit of a long haul crop at the best of times (you will be waiting three years for the first harvest) and it is a permanent fixture so it is worth this extra effort and delay.

According to The Curious Gardener’s Almanac, over three quarters of all garden chemicals sold in Britain are for the improvement of lawns. It is likely to be similar here and that is a disgraceful situation when you think about it. Time to rethink attitudes to lawns.