Every month, we offer tips and hints for the budding gardener - what to do, how do we do it, when to do it - to give you that little bit of extra help everyone needs. Our resident gardening expert, Jim Smith from West Sound Radio, will advise on what needs to be done now, and what preparation is required for what you will need to do soon.

By following our advice, based on over 40 years in the horticulture business, you should find not only your fingers, but your neighbours, turning green!

It's as easy as A, B, C and best of all it's FREE!

This month's tips - April

	Continue to sow seeds of summer bedding plants or purchase plugs to grow on. Prick out and pot up young seedlings and cuttings before they become overcrowded.
	As soon as soil and weather conditions permit, sow broad beans and early varieties of garden peas. Sow small quantities of early carrot seed such as ''Early Nantes'' if the soil is suitable.
	Start hardening-off bedding plants - protect from frost in a frost-free greenhouse or cold frame.
	Ventilate greenhouses and put on cool-glass shading to prevent young plants being scorched.
	Control slugs and snails with pellets or slug bait.
	Gladioli corms and begonia tubers are available at Sunnyside. Gladioli can be planted in mid April to avoid late frosts. Plant 8cm (3'') deep, as this will help to anchor top-heavy plants, which will require staking. If the soil is heavy or clay, put sand below corms to prevent rot.
	Prune spring-flowering shrubs after they have finished flowering and feed them with a balanced fertiliser such as Growmore.
	Clean up strawberry beds and give a dressing of Sulphate of Potash at 2oz per square yard. Give a dressing of Sulphate of Potash to fruit bushes - raspberries 2oz / sq. yard and blackcurrants 4oz / sq. yard.
	Re-pot foliage house plants if they are pot-bound.
	As feeding will have leached out of patio containers with roses or other shrubs in them, apply a slow-release fertiliser as a surface dressing and this will last throughout the season.
	Use lawn sand to kill the moss and feed the grass in your lawn. (When the moss is dead, scarify the lawn using a spring tine rake or a power scarifier.)
	Plant up your hanging baskets and keep them frost-free in the greenhouse or have them planted up at Sunnyside. You should aim to have your basket ready to hang up at the end of May.

Did you miss last month's tips? Never mind view them here.

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