Gardening in Spring with Longacres Garden Centre

Spring is upon us and our gardens are truly coming to life with an array of glorious colour. For many gardeners, spring is the time of year where you can get your hands dirty with plenty of planting and garden maintenance. As milder weather creeps its way in, now is the ideal time to pot bedding plants or transplant young seedlings kept in grow houses.

What to plant in spring

Now is the perfect time to begin planting hardy annual flowers and seasonal bedding plants outside.

While our gardens are filled with the bright shades of spring bulbs, it is a great time to bring in some summer bedding plants to get ready for the warm weather. Varieties such as begonia, calibrachoa, fuchsia, geraniums and lobelia are ready to be planted outdoors in containers or borders. As the roots take hold and the plants matures, your garden will soon be filled with even more colour!

Find a range of bedding plants at Longacres, here.

Seeds are another great way to bring life to your garden and provide a brilliant way to get children involved with the planting too. Hardy annual seeds such as sunflowers, poppies and cornflower can be sown directly into garden beds or borders for a quick and easy addition to your garden.

Find a range of seeds at Longacres, here.

For planting in greenhouses and pop up grow houses, now is the perfect time to start half hardy and summer flowering seeds such as aster, brachycome, cosmos and petunias. If you don’t have access to a greenhouse or grow house, then a warm windowsill will also work well!

Find a range of grow houses at Longacres, here.

Vegetable patches are a fantastic addition to any garden and spring is a great time to start growing from seed. Popular varieties of home grown veg include sweet peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and aubergines.

When starting vegetables from seed, it is best to keep them warm in greenhouse, grow house or a sunny windowsill until the plant has matured and the weather is warm enough for them to be transplanted outside. If you are new at growing your own veg, get a head start and find a range of vegetable starter plants online, here!

Perennials plants that bloom throughout summer are great to pot during the spring to get ready for the season ahead. While you may not be able to enjoy them straight away, come late spring to early summer, your garden will be filled with an array of colour.

Find a range of perennial plants at Longacres, here.

Now the winter frost has all but passed, trees and large shrubs are another wonderful addition to your garden. As the ground warms up, it is the ideal time to plant magnolia, cherry blossom and acer trees, as this gives them ample time to develop strong root systems before winter frost comes back at the end of the year.

If you want to give your trees a helping hand, add in some bone meal to the compost before you plant your tree.

Find a range of trees at Longacres, here.

Spring garden maintenance

Late spring is the time you will want to prune your hydrangeas ready for the summer. It is best to start by removing any dead heads, as they can begin to produce seeds and take energy away from the rest of the plant. You can find where to cut by looking at the stem and finding the new buds starting to grow. Simply take a pair of secateurs and cut roughly one to two centimetres above the bud. Some stems will have multiple buds forming, so take care to cut above the highest bud or you may lose height and new growth.

Find a range of cutting tools at Longacres, here.

This time of year you may spot the return of wild birds in your trees and hedges. Keep an eye out for bird nests while pruning plants or trimming back overgrown hedges and take care to not disturb any chicks around.

Though spring bulbs look fantastic while in bloom, they can become an eyesore once they have died back.

Remove any dead leaves or flower heads once they have started to wilt to keep your garden looking fresh. Don’t try to dig the whole plant up however, as the bulb will re-flower the following spring.

Now the ground is warming up, dreaded weeds will start to make an appearance. Keep them at bay by tackling them early. You can use a hand trowel or weeding fork to keep beds and borders clear, or use a chemical weed killer to combat those difficult to reach areas!

Find a range of digging tools at Longacres, here.