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This Month
The start of the gardening season, adverts appear on the tv, tender summer bedding plants are offered for sale, trouble is nobody has told the weather and we could still get a frost or cold weather.
Buyers beware, the most important thing this month is the weather, will your purchase survive some cold weather, you will find yourself taking a keen interest in the weather forecast.
There are plenty of hardy plants on sale but often tender plants are sold with them and you need to be careful.
I think the weather dominates this month, April showers and frost, summer bedding will be on sale, often in flower to tempt you, the sun may be shining but it is too early to plant out, so you will need to protect them in a greenhouse, conservatory or even the house.
You will be in a hurry to start planting but frost is now your enemy, once you could rely on the local weather forecasts to warn you, but in recent years I have found them to be increasingly unreliable and quite often misleading, they seem to be obsessed with extreme weather and warnings.
Another problem, they now give the temperatures for towns, this can give you a false sense of security, as they are normally warmer than rural areas, so often you get no warning of early morning frosts.
You need to learn to read the weather yourself, look out for still conditions and clear skies at night if in doubt cover your plants with fleece.
It is time to think about your tender vegetable plants, you will find tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and chillies on sale, if you buy them now and keep them warm you will get an earlier crop.
To help you we have split this month’s best buys into tender or hardy
Tender Plants
These are okay to buy but you need to be prepared to help them if the weather turns cold. This might just be covered with fleece, but some will need to spend some time indoors keeping warm.
Summer bedding plants is often on sale in April but it is probably too early to plant out, be careful.
What to watch out for in April
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Plug plants
Baby bedding plants start to appear and can be very tempting. Once very popular they can be a useful alternative to buying a packet of…
Summer bedding plants
Summer bedding is the planting of short-lived but fast-growing plants to provide masses of colourful flowers or foliage through the summer. The plants are normally…
Summer patio pots and hanging baskets
The hardest thing about summer planters is deciding when to plant them, the spectre of frost is always there. If you have planters that can…
Tender vegetables
Tomatoes, peppers, chilli, cucumbers all need to be grown in a greenhouse, conservatory or plastic grow house. You can buy them now for planting later….
Hardy plants on sale during April
Safe to buy and plant out
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Camellia
One of those flowering plants, in full glorious flower, that you never forget. Probably on most gardeners wish lists. Often sold in bud and flower…
Campanula
Normally summer flowering they can be forced into flower and are popular spring plants, the blue flowers and trailing stems are eye-catching. You will often…
Late Spring bedding plants
Plants that are hardy and can be planted out without worrying about the weather, this includes viola, pansy, bellis and forget me not. I would…
Lithodora heavenly blue
Very popular alpine the bright blue flowers catch everybody’s attention. beautiful blue & blue star flowers semi trailing habit Relatively easy to grow, the hairy…
Pieris forest flame
Often called forest flame, the young spring growth is brightly coloured. Everybody’s favourite, the bright red shoots are very seductive, most gardeners will have tried…
Rhododendrons
Stunning colours flowering in late spring in a wide range of shapes and sizes. They make good patio pot plants. Rhododenrons make great statement plants…
Spring Alpines
Alpines Spring flowering alpines, grown undercover to flower earlier than normal they can be a good buy, just remember they will flower later next year….
Spring Violas
Quicker to flower than pansies, they are perfect for early spring sales. Two-tone flowers are popular. pansy yellow Plain or fancy flowers you will be…
Sweetpea
Sweetpeas Not traditional thought of as a bedding plant, they are sold in large quantities so I have included them, they can be used to…
On the Nursery this month
On the nursery in April
The weather tends to dominate, we love to see the sun, it quickly warms up the greenhouse and you can actually see the plants grow. Unfortunately, sunny days often have chilly nights and the boiler may be needed.
You also need to keep your coat handy, you can be sweating in a warm greenhouse one minute but when you venture outside it can be quite chilly.
New arrivals
We keep potting our summer stock, it has to be grown in batches to avoid it all flowering at the same time.
Pest & disease
Pests are increasing in numbers, we monitor them with sticky traps. When the numbers start to increase we start to introduce biological control.
Before the aphids start to wake up we introduce some predators
Here we can see them working, some turn the mummified aphids silvery but this one called praon sets up shop under the aphid.
Careful watering
April brings sunshine and showers, we can get dull weather then sudden bursts of sunshine, if you turn your back the plants can suddenly dry out, you need to be vigilant, especially small plants and seedlings. The weather is so up and down, you need to adapt your watering when the sun shines water often when its cold and damp be extra careful and only water if it is essential.
When seed sowing try to use plug trays it will help to prevent diseases from spreading and make potting easier.
Protect your seedlings use plug trays
Protect your seedlings When I started gardening many years ago, seed was always sown into seed trays and followed by pricking out. Pricking out stations…
Ready to sell
April can be a funny month it can be warm and sunny and customers get excited asking for summer bedding plants but we know the weather can change to cold and frosty very quickly
When is it safe to plant out, it depends where you live but generally, I think you can trust the swallows and you can think about planting 3 weeks after they appear, Our swallows tend to arrive back about the 20th of April so planting about the middle of May is normally okay for us
There is still a chance of frost so keep some fleece handy and use it to protect any early bedding.
There are some things you can buy and plant out straight away.
Bellis are colourful and tough
Forget me not perfect spring colours
Violas make cheap and cheerful planters.
We grow a range of patio vegetables they make brilliant gardening projects for kids.
Growing pea shoots
How to start growing pea shoots You can grow pea shoots, this is a very easy method. Buy some peas…
Easy Strawberries
Remember when Strawberries were Sweet, juicy and full of aroma. They are not quite the same nowadays, the supermarket grower…
Growing Sweetpeas
How to start growing sweetpeas This is sweetpeas for beginners, a quick search online will bring up a wide range of…
Growing Tomatoes
How to start growing tomatoes This is tomatoes for beginners, a quick search online will bring up a wide range of…
Growing Sunflowers
How to start growing sunflowers This is sunflowers for beginners, a quick search online will bring up a wide range…
Growing Peas
How to start growing Peas This is Peas for beginners, a quick search online will bring up a wide range…
Check out our How to buy plants guide
We can help you choose the correct plants and avoid those expensive mistakes.
Check out our where to buy plants guide
If your plants keep failing, you might be buying them at the wrong time or poor quality plants from the wrong supplier.
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