Sow, grow, don’t mow: 15 ways to get your garden ready for spring and summer

Sow, grow, don’t mow: 15 ways to get your garden ready for spring and summer Whether it’s organising the shed, sharpening tools or giving garden furniture a good scrub, here are tips to prep – and enjoy – your outdoor patch The best pressure washers – tested T he winter of soggy malaise is over. Daffs have popped up; the tulips are well on their way; the days are bright, clear and longer than the nights are short. With that comes a sense of the outdoors: the garden. Perhaps this fills you with delight, getting your fingers in the earth after work or dinner. Or perhaps it fills you with a sense of vague dread – you haven’t been out there all winter, and there’s just so much to do. But our gardens are places for us to enjoy and share with others in our ecosystem. So if you want to spend the summer luxuriating in yours, now is the time to get your sticks together: sow, grow and don’t mow. How to get your garden ready for spring and summer Extend pots with summer bulbs Abyssinian gladiolus If your containers are now looking gorgeous, make sure you enjoy them – then get thinking about what’s going to sit in their place. You can get good deals on cut-price dahlias at the moment, but don’t ignore gladiolus (I like Acidanthera murielae ) or the towering eremurus . … and leave your spring ones well alone “Don’t go cutting the leaves off your spring bulbs once they’ve gone over,” says Pollyanna Wilkinson, garden designer and author of How to Design a Garden . “It’s important that you leave the leaves in place so the bulbs can photosynthesise and store energy for next year.” If in doubt, keep all bulb foliage until it’s yellowed, when it should be easy to pull away. Invest in garden furniture Habitat Indu two-seater bench It’s just beginning to get warm and bright enough to take a morning coffee outside (more on that below), but winters, especially those as soggy as we’ve had, can be tough on garden furniture. At the very least, a bucket of warm soapy water and a stiff brush d...