The hectic garden in April

For me April is one of the busiest months of the year in the garden, hence my blog entries have suffered! Gardening on clay means that you can only work with the soil and landscape the garden a couple of months of the year, as in winter it’s too wet and the soil structure can be easily damaged, in Summer it’s dry and hard as a brick! So I’ve been busy landscaping.

At Easter we had a digger clear and dig over large areas of abandoned borders, after a lot of raking and treading down I have finally grass seeded the areas to become lawn. No doubt in years to come when my children are older I’ll convert them back to ornamental borders! During this gruelling endurance exercise I have learnt a valuable lesson, to use a tarmac rake. My digger driver suggested I invest in this tool. It weighs a tonne which did initially put me off, however, if you just gently pull it towards you on uneven ground allowing the weight of the rake head to do the work it’s very efficient.  After a while you achieve a smoother tilth and the rake can be pushed and pulled to create an even surface. A month later and the grass seed (and weeds, to match the rest of the lawn) is beginning to germinate, with hope we’ll have a carpet of grass by June.

Garden Before ShotThe before shot – not a pretty sight!

The digger'sThe digger’s! My youngest 4 year old son doing his best to help.

Garden after shotThe after shot – the husbands job is to remove the pile of hardcore before summer, when we’ll no doubt need to grass seed the patch where it stood!

My other time consuming April task has been seed propagation. My conservatory (potting shed) is heaving at the seams with germinating seeds and seedlings. Potting on always takes more time than expected, so this combined with last minute weeding and mulching on areas I didn’t get round to earlier in the year, has kept me very busy.

Seedlings in the conservatory

 

 

2 Replies to “The hectic garden in April”

  1. It looks like it’s going to be lovely! I have digger envy. I’d love to get a digger in to create a pond at the bottom of our garden. The seedlings look good, all we need now is for the risk of frost to pass.
    Liz

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