Hello Gardeners. After what seems a long winter there’s nothing like seeing your garden spring back to life.  However, newly formed shoots on your hosta’s and blossoming flowers are heaven to slugs and snails; not only do slugs munch through your seedlings in minutes but they can destroy your hostas in a few days. In fact looking at my favourites recently I discovered the shoots had been munched away –  that’s it, WAR DECLARED!  No 1. trim around the lawn as  they can hide there.  2. I bought a grapefruit halved it and made a small hole for them to crawl in. Success!!  2 days later it was full of slugs – they had huddled together under the  skin. Slugs LOVE grapefruit . Oat bran is another favourite they eat it and it expands inside them and their end is nigh . Another tip I was told  slugs love cat and dog food and if you half bury a  empty can except for a small amount of dog or cat food they will soon go in the can and you can then dispose of them. Certain plants deter slugs choose from the following: mint chives, foxgloves, garlic and geraniums plant them around the edge of your prized plants and they will be safe but make sure there are no slugs on your plants to start with.

Other jobs you can do this month are:

.Remove side shoots and pinch out tendrils on cordon sweet peas.
. Divide sprouted dahlia tubers; pot up individual tubers with strong shoots
. Repot container plants that are pot bound, gently loosening rootballs before moving to larger containers.

. Once the soil has warmed up, weed borders and apply a moisture-retaining mulch.
. Use fleece to protect young growth from frost sold in all garden centres
. Stake tall-growing perennials.
. Shorten the straggly shoots on camellias after flowering this will encourage flowers
. Rake moss from the lawn with a spring-time rake towards the end of the month.
. Divide pot-grown agapanthus. Though they do like to be crowded, you can split and repot –  its something I have to do this month. Mine have been in the pot for 8 years and I will now divide into at least 3 new plants.

The Lawn can now be raked spiked and cut on high setting then a spring fertilizer applied.

Enjoy yourselves ,

Norman Conway.