Gardeners’ World – April 2024

Despite more weeks of rain, the spring flowers are looking very cheerful, and the daffodils have benefited from the wet weather. A scattering of fish, blood and bone now will help feed the bulbs for next year. My favourite is the old Pheasants Eye with white petals and a tiny red and yellow centre with a beautiful perfume. It is the last one to flower in May, so daffodils give a long display of spring colour from February  to May. Now is the time to cut down the foliage of penstemon which has been protecting the new growth over the winter. It is also time to cut down any ornamental grasses as the new shoots will be starting to grow.

If you have sown sweet peas indoors, they will be growing quickly and need to have the growing tips cut out which will make them bushy. It is not too late to sow them, 3-4 in a pot , and then you will have a succession of flowers. Hopefully, if the ground is dry enough, I will plant my first ones in a wigwam of canes or better still hazel branches. In the vegetable garden it is time to put in onions and shallots and early potatoes, although at the Allotments the ground is still too wet after all the flooding, and I am going to start my onions in pots and then transplant when the ground is drier.