Gardening Tips for April 2026

Has it stopped raining yet? Last year at this time we were several weeks into a drought and prairie planting was all the rage. This year, water gardens could be making a splash. Whichever is preferred, now is the time to get planting or digging if a water garden is this year’s project.

The flower garden

Are your daffodils leafier than you remember or just all leaf and no flower? Could be time to lift and separate. As this year’s leaves are starting to yellow, now is a good time to dig up the daffodils, separate the cluster of bulbs and replant individual bulbs about 100mm apart and deep. This way one can look forward to reinvigorated blooms next year. Note to diary, repeat every three or four years.

The plant of the month should be the tulip unless that was last month and because of global warming, I’ve missed it! Tulips enjoy well drained soil and can last several years but they do give up eventually and need replacing.

Weeds are now making their unwelcome return with anything other than weedy growth.  So, is there any way of slowing their rampage through the garden or are gardeners doomed for a life of digging them up? One idea is to plant ground-covering plants. Such plants should be hardy, rapid growers, tolerant of the garden conditions, maintenance free – well almost – and plants that can be enjoyed enhancing the garden and look better than a covering of weeds. The following table gives an idea of what can be used and where.

Dry soil Lady’s mantle, False dittany, Euphorbia, Phlox, Creeping Thyme	Evergreen herbaceous Bergenia, Hellebore, Thyme
Wet soil Ferns, Geraniums, Hosta, Creeping dogwood, Creeping Jenny	Shrubby carpeting plants Hoary mugwort, heather, Cotoneaster (low growing variant such as dammeri otherwise you will grow a hedge!), Thyme
For shade Japanese spurge, Periwinkle (good on a slope), Sweet Woodruff	Rock plants/Small carpeters Aceana (as for a bidgee-widgee in the garden centre!), Bugle, Aubretia, Hebe, even more Thyme

Lawns

Lawns usually take a beating during the winter, with winter behind us, and hopefully the grass showing signs of spring growth, here are a few suggestions for improvement...

Top dress with a mixture of soil and sand or premix from the garden centre, raking it over the lawn surface, especially into divots to level the surface. A useful benefit of top dressing is it can help prevent the buildup of thatch by mixing in with the thatch layer and can help break it down.

Using sand-based topdressing can improve your soil’s drainage and firm up the surface. This works particularly well after aeration as the topdressing can be worked into the soil through the holes left behind.

Alternatively, treat your lawn to one of the commercially available multifunction surface treatments that can feed the grass, kill moss and weeds and turn your lawn green.  However, be very careful with the dose as too much will turn the grass black and much too much will kill it. As these treatments contain fertilisers. use sparingly otherwise the mower will be getting excessive use, but that should be fine as we all got our mowers serviced over the winter.

Alternatively, one of the latest fads is to add a couple of measures of whisky to a full watering can and lightly water the lawn, this way the grass comes up half cut, therefore less to mow.

Keep gardening, Richard Haigh