Is your garden about to burst with blossom and bulbs, but still looking messy after its winter hibernation? Now’s the time to get it spring- and summer-ready.
From finding the perfect fruit tree to sprucing up your fences and furniture, these are the easy jobs to tackle now that will transform your garden for the months ahead.
We called on garden professionals for their tips and best buys. And as a lifelong gardener myself – I asked for a pond liner for my 11th birthday – I’ve spent decades writing about gardening and putting the many tips I’ve discovered into play in my small, urban garden.
How to get your garden ready for spring and summer
Grow a mini meadow
Low-growing wildflower seeds
From £7 for 10g at Landlife Wildflowers
£113.99 for 1kg at B&Q
Lawn upkeep isn’t always environmentally friendly, but full-blown meadows can look scruffy for many months of the year; as a compromise, you could consider replacing your lawn with a low-growing multispecies-wildflower meadow, which can still be mown, though only on a long setting every few weeks. Wildflower Turf sells a selection of turfs for an instant transformation, while a budget option is to sow seeds into the bald patches of an existing lawn.
If you’ve got a lawn, but want it to be a bit more eco-friendly, even leaving a tiny area of uncut grass will help attract various native species, says garden consultant Emma Burrill. If you have space for a proper meadow, “a scythe is the best way to take down a meadow at the end of summer or in early autumn”, says garden designer Fiona Lydon.
Keep on top of weeding
Hori Hori
£32.95 at Sarah Raven
£39.99 at Crocus
Weeds seem to be the first thing to get growing in most gardens. Get on top of them from the start by keeping a multitool by the back door and taking it on every foray into the garden. Each of our experts swears by the same one: a Hori Hori knife. “It’s perfect for digging, cutting, weeding and planting, so you can get loads done even on a quick stroll or lunch break,” says garden designer Lulu Roper-Caldbeck. “It’s especially useful for removing deep-rooted weeds like dandelion, and is great for planting out seedlings and plug plants,” adds Burrill.
Create a seating area
Malta 6-seater garden corner sofa set
£800 at Argos
Lucinda garden furniture
From £60 at Argos
Striped deck chair
£59 at John Lewis
Comfortable seating is a gamechanger, allowing us to spend long periods in the garden. Burrill is a fan of a traditional deckchair. “They’re comfortable, look great, and can be stored away easily.” John Lewis sells a deckchair with the welcome addition of arms.
Lydon suggests metal seating, with cushions that can be brought out of storage. Habitat’s colourful, postmodern Lucinda collection features chairs, sofas and side tables. I bought an L-shaped garden sofa in lockdown, which means we now spend whole days, rather than hours, outdoors – including afternoon naps. Look for secondhand versions locally on eBay or Facebook Marketplace.
Versatile tables
Frutta ceramic stool
£168 at Anthropologie
Slim German beer festival table and bench sets are great for gardens, particularly where space is tight. “Look online at places such as eBay or Vinterior for secondhand ones. They often come in great colours and can be folded and stored easily when not in use,” says Burrill.
A selection of sturdy ceramic outdoor stools are versatile and weather-proof: dot them around your garden, and look for designs with a flat top, so they can double as occasional tables. Anthropologie and La Redoute have good options.
Get planting
Japanese anemone
£12.99 at Crocus
From £12.99 at RHS Plants
Hart’s tongue fern
From £9.99 at Crocus
Knowing where to start can be hard. Be guided by the amount of sun your garden gets – and how cold it gets in winter, particularly in an exposed or rural setting. Look for “AGM” after the plant’s name: it’s the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit, effectively meaning that a plant is easy to grow; while an RHS bee symbol means the plant is good for pollinators.
Try Erysimum Bowles’s mauve and Salvia nemorosa Caradonna for summer-long colour and Anemone x hybrida Honorine Jobert Japanese anemone, which flowers from late summer, well into autumn. Meanwhile, evergreen ferns like Asplenium scolopendrium Hart’s tongue fern will provide a sense of lush greenery, even in the depths of winter. Give everything a good weekly water through their first growing season, which will encourage the development of deeper roots.
Smarten up your boundaries
Cuprinol Garden Shades
From £2 for 125ml at Wickes
From £20 for a 1l at B&Q
Star jasmine
From £12.99 at Thompson and Morgan
From £23.99 at Crocus
Tidy up shabby, mismatched fencing (where the fences around a garden are fitted by different neighbours and don’t match) with paint. Try Cuprinol Garden Shades: it’s easy to use, comes in a huge range of colours, and is great for giving wooden benches a new lease of life.
For greening up fences and boundaries, look for evergreen climbers such as Trachelospermum jasminoides star jasmine for year-round lushness and Clematis armandii apple blossom for a profusion of flowers, early in spring.
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Plant a tree
Snowy June berry
From £20.63 at Crocus
From £20.63 at Primrose
Sunset apple tree
From £16.99 at J Parker’s
From £29.99 at Thompson and Morgan
It may seem counterintuitive, but a tree can make even the smallest of gardens feel larger. Amelanchier lamarckii snowy June berry, with its profuse white flowers in spring and gorgeous autumn colour, has year-round interest. The cut-leaf crabapple, Malus transitoria, has an abundance of white blossom in spring, and golden yellow foliage and fruit in autumn, much loved by birds, says Burrill. For shady spots, consider an acer, suggests Lydon.
Malus domestica sunset is a beautiful sturdy-looking apple tree that can grow to anything from 2.5-8m depending on rootstock, says Burrill. “Mine is growing on a semi-dwarfing rootstock so will only reach about 3.5m high, which means the fruit is easier to pick. It fruits abundantly and is an excellent eater similar to a cox but much less susceptible to pests and diseases; plus it stores well.”
Most fruit trees need a sunny spot but for shade try the cherry Prunus cerasus morello. “The blossom is also lovely and while the cherries are mostly for cooking, some people enjoy the sour taste,” says Lydon.
Vilmorin’s rowan trees
£19.99 at Gardening Express
£70 at Ornamental Trees
In small gardens, Lydon suggests the delicate rowan, Sorbus vilmorinii, which has single white flowers in blossom season and pink berries in the autumn. The pinnate leaves cast little shade and make the autumn clean-up a cinch. Or, consider a large shrub instead of a tree, which might outgrow its spot. “Viburnum x burkwoodii has amazing flowers and the birds love it,” she says. “Viburnum x carlcephalum is highly scented and can be pruned as a multistem to look very elegant. Pistacia lentiscus mastic tree is also wonderful in sheltered city gardens.”
“Where space is not an issue, I like hawthorn because it’s such a great habitat and feeding point for birds,” says Lydon. “Crataegus persimilis prunifolia is a stunner when the tree is in berry. If you have clay soil, look at Betula (birch), Amelanchier (shadbush), Malus (crabapple) and Crataegus (hawthorn), and for year-round boundary screening try the evergreen Ligustrum japonicum Variegatum: use a stake to give it good support.”
Light up
Solvinden table lamp
From £3 at Ikea
Garden lighting is magical, but it can disturb wildlife, particularly in rural settings. “Be mindful of the need for skies to be dark – use sparingly and don’t be tempted to uplight. To minimise light pollution, use downlights – wall mounted or strapped around a tree trunk – to highlight key features in the garden,” says Lydon, who recommends In-Lite as an easy-to-use outdoor lighting system. “You can plug outside lights into an outdoor socket. Or Ikea does some stylish take-outside battery-powered lighting for evenings in the garden”.
The joy of seeds
Seasonal seed box
£20 at Planet Good Earth
Now is the time to get sowing. Lulu Roper-Caldbeck heartily recommends Planet Good Earth as an introduction to growing from seeds, for adults and children alike. “Its seasonal seed box is a great way to learn about growing, with a mix of seasonal veg, salad and herbs, perfect for any space, even small containers.” Chiltern Seeds comes highly recommended by our experts, while Burrill also suggests Naturescape for wild and native plant seeds. Sowing methods vary widely from plant to plant, so always follow the instructions on the packet.
Fast composting
Hotbin plinth bundle
£215 at Hotbin Composting
£213.99 at Marshalls Garden
Spring is tidy-up time in the garden, so it’s worth getting into composting. It’s the best way to get rid of garden waste and create your own compost, which is always useful to gardeners. “To maximise space and time, get hold of a Hotbin rather than an open compost heap. These insulated bins don’t require as much space or a sunny spot and can turn garden clippings and food waste into compost in as little as three months. I put one in every client’s garden if I can,” says Lydon. Roper-Caldbeck agrees: “They’re a great composting option, especially for small gardens, as they’re compact, don’t smell or attract rats and, as a bonus, it also creates nutrients-rich liquid fertiliser for plants.”
Save water this summer with a butt
Strata recycled plastic water butt kit, 210l
£38.99 at Wilko
£54.99 at Amazon
Most containers need regular watering through the summer, as do plants in their first year, so reduce your water consumption by installing a water butt. Go for the biggest one you can accommodate, or get a couple. I sourced a great one through a shout-out on my local free forum – and avoided more plastic.
“Rainwater is naturally softer and better for plants, as it doesn’t contain the chemicals found in tap water,” says Roper-Caldbeck. “I use old and new galvanised cattle troughs, which can be easily adapted to collect water using simple DIY diverter kits for your guttering, and look so much more attractive than the off-the-shelf water butts,” says Burrill. If you do need the capacity and convenience of a standard water butt, look for recycled plastic versions.
Feed your plants
Maxicrop original seaweed extract, 500ml
£11.99 at Thompson & Morgan
£14.99 at B&Q
If you want to keep the plants you’ve got looking good for the season ahead, feed them. In early spring, I like to mulch the ground around my plants with organic farmyard manure (it’s rotted down so any bad smell is negligible). For the rest of the growing season, I use organic seaweed extract, dosed into a watering can.
Bulbs in the green
Double snowdrop
£11.87 for 25 bulbs at Sarah Raven
£19.9 for 25 bulbs at Crocus
We may be looking beyond snowdrops at this time of year, but spring is actually the perfect time to plant them “in the green”, so they reappear in January. Plant them where they’ll be seen from inside the house. As Burrill says: “Although you can get many varieties, it is still hard to beat the native Galanthus nivalis.”
Kate Jacobs is a freelance writer, specialising in design, interiors and gardens. She gets the biggest buzz from finding pieces for her own home at car-boot fairs and charity shops and even things dumped in the street. Similarly, she loves to propagate her own plants as part of her ‘waste not, want not’ approach to gardening. She is trying to keep on top of a serious Facebook Marketplace habit