How to Prepare your Garden for Spring

Of Plumbers' taps, cobblers' shoes and fence installers' gardens

They say that plumbers always have leaky taps and cobblers’ children have no shoes. To be fair it is often the case that crafts people forget to look after what’s closest to home and we wondered if it’s the same with fence installers. Do those who add such great architecture and style to their customers’ gardens tend to ignore their own?

Spring is getting earlier

Anyway, with the green shoots of spring just around the corner, here at team DuraPost®, we thought we’d share five top tips for small things you could be doing now to get your garden into shape for the growing season. Whether you grow flowers, vegetables or just look after a patch of lawn, gardens quickly respond to a little TLC.

Meteorological spring always starts on March 1st but statistics show that over recent years spring has been coming as much as 4 weeks earlier in the UK. Bear in mind of course that when you actually start to work depends on where you live – typically at this time of year, the north of the UK may be as much as 4-6 weeks behind the southern parts. The suggested dates in this blog apply to those in the south who need to start earlier.

Tip #1. Don't let the grass grow under your feet

Once the temperature gets to around 10ºc – which is what the forecasters are suggesting over the next few weeks, grass grows. For most of us it was horrendously wet around the turn of the year but with milder weather and a bit of breeze lawns are drying out. Providing your mower* is in full working order and will handle the going underfoot it’s never really too early to get a first cut of the season in with a high blade-setting. Grass is tough as old boots and you’re not going to do it any damage. It will make the whole garden look smarter and there’s no better backdrop to motivate you into doing other things.


*If you have a motor mower this is a really good time to book it in for a service – in fact the earlier the better as mower mechanics seem to be a dying breed and these next two months really are their busy season.

Tip #2. Buy you lawn 'Weed and Feed' early.

As soon as you’ve taken the top off of the lawn it’s an opportunity to apply a ‘weed and feed’ product. Many are available at garden centres, and even supermarkets, will be stocking them on the shelf soon. Apply as per the instructions and you will have the plantains and dandelions under control in double quick time. It’s then worth repeating the treatment every 6-8 weeks during the growing season.