As the weather picks up, Gardener Peter Dowdall reveals what we need to do in our garden this month from the lawn to planting and pruning now that spring is in full swing
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It’s time for those with green fingers to get their spades back out. According to gardening expert Peter Dowdall, April means gardening season is back in full swing, and there are some key tasks to consider this month if you want to have the perfect moss free lawn this summer, as well as what you can consider planting this month.
Lawns
Lawn maintenance gets busy around now as from April you really need to be mowing once a week. If you haven’t scarified already, consider doing so this month.
Scarifying a lawn is simply the process of removing dead thatch with a mechanical or hand held rake (the brown material found beneath the green grass blades), by pulling up the top inch of soil. A small amount of thatch is a good thing in lawns, but in large quantities it can inhibit growth of new grass, prevent water and nutrients from reaching the roots, and encourage moss to form. So it’s important to scarify your lawn once a year to help alleviate this
If your lawn is running away with you I would seriously look at investing in a robot lawnmower. Any garden I see with a well maintained lawn is all being looked after by robot mowers. If a robot is cutting the grass it’s doing it all the time so the grass never gets out of control.
If we are doing it ourselves, you’re waiting for the weather or waiting for the weekend when we have more time. It’s a bit of an outlay on day one depending on the size of the garden but I think you’ll thank yourself in the long run.
Planting
April is when the weather starts to get better. It’s getting warmer and it’s also when the colour starts to be seen in the garden.
However, while you’ll be spotting plenty of summer bedding in the garden centre, be careful if you’re going ahead with summer bedding now as they are all grown under glass and in polytunnels.
In Ireland we are still susceptible to getting a drop in temperature in April so while you can plant out your summer bedding you need to be aware we could still get a late frost and even a dip down to one or two degrees which would affect any planting.
For the kitchen garden and edible gardening it’s a great time to start a raised bed if you don’t have one.
You can get an off the shelf raised bed unit in a garden centre easily and they are great because you have a set area for your planting, they can look very attractive and because they are raised they are very well drained which is very important with the climate we have.
They are also ideal for those with poor soil, as with a raised bed you create your own soil, so you can make it whatever you want and therefore grow whatever you want.
What to Plant
In terms of edibles tomato plants, chillis, aubergines, cucumbers can all be started now. You could also look at courgettes, leeks, beetroots and carrots. Plus if you enjoy them, it’s not too late to sow sweet potatoes. My advice to anyone wanting to grow edibles is always just plant what you want to eat. Most of it is very simple. Be realistic and don’t sow more than what you want to eat because that’s when it becomes too much work for you.
Ultimately you just need to pay attention to the weather for herbs and edibles like tomatoes just like the summer bedding plants in case of dropping temperatures. Similarly if we get a nice April they could dry out. If its not raining and they are growing well they will be using a lot of moisture so you will need to keep an eye and give them water if they need
If temperatures do drop, consider buying some horticultural fleece, so you can cover them to physically keep the frost off. You can even use cardboard or newspaper to keep the frost off them as it is just a temporary measure, however be sure you don’t use any plastics as you need to maintain airflow.
In raised beds you can do the same thing but many raised beds come with lids, which are really useful to create a mini glasshouse effect when you need to protect them, especially as seedlings.
Pruning
Any spring flowering shrubs which have finished, like forsythia, can be cut back this month. Spring flowering plants flower on growth produced the previous year so something that will be in flower this spring is flowering from growth in 2024, so when flowering is finished it can be cut back to produce lots of new growth for next year
If you have a gardening query or a question that you would like answered instantly, Ask Peter on theirishgardener.com/pages/ask-peter
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