LOVE YOUR LAWN

Lawns should be treated with the same kindness you over beds, borders and container plants. It's a remarkable plant and getting it to look lovely all year round is not as hard as you might think. April is the start of the growing season and what better time than to give your lawn a feed. Wait for a mild spell and to save you time why not use a combined weedkiller and fertiliser dressing?

April is also a great time to lay turf rolls or sow lawn seed on bare patches.

If you feel daunted by your lawn and live in the South West, why don't you visit St Bridget Nurseries in Old Rydon Lane, Exeter as they are having a lawn advice day. Dennis Lane, Grounds Inspector, of the Institute of Groundsmanship, will be on hand at St. Bridget's Garden Centre, Old Rydon Lane, Exeter on Sunday 1st April to give expert help and advice on all aspects of lawns and turf management. Dennis will be happy to identify weed problems in your lawn or explain why you have bare patches so please bring in samples of the weeds or diseases on your grass.

It's easy to get the lawn of your dreams - just visit St Bridget Nurseries Garden Centres!

Now is an ideal time to divide herbaceous perennials. Not only will you get more plants but you'll get healthier ones too. If you took cuttings of tender perennials last summer now is a good time to start potting them. Cut back ornamental grasses and other perennials. It is best to remove older, dead and damaged leaves from around them too as this reduces disease risk. Deadhead your daffodils while you are at it but leave the leaves to die down naturally as this gives the bulbs lots of nutrients to re-shoot next year. Now is also a good time to start feeding other plants in your beds and borders. A general purpose fertiliser is ideal.

Sit back and relax...

The garden is a place for entertainment and enjoyment, think of it as an outside room that you decorate! With the weather warming up now is a great time to get a new piece of garden furniture ready for the beauty of spring and summer. St Bridget Nurseries' Garden Centre in Old Rydon Lane has one of the best selections of garden furniture in Devon and some fantastic offers. This beautiful Nova Aluminium Chatsworth suite is finished in matt black and includes:
1 x Chatsworth 155 x 92cm Rectangular Table
6 x Chatsworth Armchairs
6 x Spice mid range seat pads
The usual price for this set is £ 1071.99 but St Bridget's are offering a £270 saving and selling it for £ 799.99!

St Bridget Nurseries also sells wooden and resin garden furniture including benches, sunloungers, parassols and seat pads. PLUS a new and exciting range of garden games!

You can visit the garden furniture shrowroom at Old Rydon Lane, Exeter, Devon, EX2 7JY 01392 873672.

Helping your garden wildlife...

Don't be too tidy in your garden as undisturbed areas are great for wildlife. These places provide safe daytime hiding places for small creatures and by allowing insects to gather gives a restaurant for birds! Try to minimise the amount of spraying you do as nature will do a lot of pest control for you - hedgehogs eat slugs, birds eat many insects like greenfly and ladybirds eat aphids.

Help provide a little extra food for birds while they are nesting by using a range of feeders including those that hang, bird tables and food on the ground.

Encourage mason bees with specially designed bee boxes available from good garden centres like St Bridget's. Mason bees help pollinate the garden and work harder than honey bees in poorer weather!

Get further advice...this weekend at St Bridget Nurseries' garden centre, Sidmouth Road, Clyst St Mary, Exeter, EX5 1AE; the Devon Wildlife Trust will be there to tell you more about wildlife and the amazing work of the trust. St Bridget Nurseries was one of the first and few garden centres in Devon to be approved by the Devon Wildlife Trust in recognition of the wildlife focus the company offers. The garden centre is open 8am-5.30pm on Saturday and 10.30 to 4.30pm on Sunday.

Things to do in the Greenhouse...
Greenhouses can get very hot very quickly in Spring sunshine and so you may want to think about putting up some shading.
Give pots of amaryllis a high potash fertiliser like Tomorite and start to prick out seddlings that have germinated.
If you brought fuchsias and pelargoniums in over the winter now is a good time to start watering them again to start growth.

WANT BLUE HYDRANGEAS AND GOT PINK?

Most hydrangea varieties are capable of growing flowers in shades of pink or blue it is just the white ones that are always white. It is the amount of aluminium present in the plants sap that gives it its colour. Aluminium is most easily absorbed from acid soils and so you will find it hard to get really blue hydrangeas on limey or chalky alkaline soils. If you have pink hydrangeas in an acidic soil you need to add more aluminium and so buy some hydrangea colourant from your gaden centre like St Bridget Nurseries. Apply it weekly throughout the growing season every year and you should get blue blooms!

DID YOU KNOW?
If you sow poached-egg plants, Candytuft or Californian Poppies among your vegetable plants they will attract hoverflies whose larvae feed on pesty aphids!

BORDERLINE!

If you try and ensure your garden borders are tidy and well weeded now, before the growth surge in April, you'll avoid playing catch up in summer.

Start by cutting down the stems of all hardy perennials that you left over the winter, and provided soil is not saturated clean up any weeds.

Sprinkle a general fertiliser such as organic blood, fish and bone around the roots of border plants and hedging plants. Top dress borders with a thick mulch of peat-free soil conditioner or shredded bark to help retain mositure in the summer and inhibit the growth of weeds.

Got a gap? There's some great new plants arriving in garden centres like St bridget Nurseries at the moment so why not enjoy the sunshine, stroll around the centre have a tea break and then buy a few new plants for those gaps?

MAKE A KITCHEN GARDEN...

It's March and the time of year when our gardens start to wake up. The sun has finally arrived so why not begin to enjoy the garden a bit more? One of the best features of a garden and definitely an allotment is growing things you can eat! The following are just some of the things you can do now to get rewards later!

1. PLANT - Plant potatoes, shallots, garlic and onion sets.

2. SOW - Many vegetable crops can be sown in March especially in mild areas like Devon. Just look at the back of the packets to see what you can plant but sweet peppers and tomatoes are an example plus herbs like parsley and chives.

3. PRUNE - If you have gooseberry or blueberry bushes remove a few older stems from the base.

4. POLLINATE - hand pollinate flowers of apricots and peaches using a fine brush! Don't forget to protect them from the frost either.

Pond care...

With things starting to warm up now is a good time to remove your pond heaters and clean filters. Check your pumps are working and that your UV bulbs are OK. If you have a blown bulb your local aquatics centre, like St Bridget Nurseries on Sidmouth Road, Clyst St Mary, Exeter; will have lots of spares.

The rise in temperature will also cause weed to grow. Apply barley straw to stop algae and for blanketweed it's a simple net and bucket job, although there are several blanketweed liquid controls available on the market.

If you have pond plants, now is also a good time to divide marginal and bog plants before they come into growth.