Spring The Lawn Remove the winter moss by scarifying with a wire rake or a hired mechanical scarifyer. Lawn sand contains iron sulphate, which will help green up the sward without promoting too much lush growth. Avoid applying a lot of nitrogen early in the season as this will produce lush soft growth prone to fungal attacks. For the first cut, raise the mower to 2-3 inches to avoid scalping the sward and leaving large brown/yellow marks. The Water Check for wild life in the pond such as frog's newt's fish. Clear out any leaves that have accumulated over the winter. Once the aquatic plants are actively growing, you can split or re-pot the baskets and pot in the water. Use peat-free compost preferably a loam (soil) based compost to make the most of its essential trace elements. Organic matter tends to float and can create problems in settling the water balance. The Shrubs Once the winter flowering shrubs such as sarcacocca have finished flowering, prune them. This will encourage thicker growth and will increase the following season's perfumed flowers. Spring flowers such as Forsythia Spirea and Ribes should be pruned after flowering to help shape and increase their flowers. Continue to keep an eye out for the Sudden Oak Death fungus. Trees Now is a good time to go round all plants with tree stakes and check the ties to make sure there is enough support and that the tie is not cutting into the trunk. Remove any dead, crossing, split or debarked branches. With lawn trees, it is good practice to reduce competition from weeds. This can be done culturally with a hoe, by hand or by applying Roundup. Hardy Annuals For a few pounds you could create a spectacular show with direct sowing of hardy annuals. Mark out an irregular shaped bed with a line of sand (a reminder when things germinate) about the size of two dustbin lids. Sow the seeds in straight lines across the bed about a hoe's width apart. Once the hardy annuals have germinated in the straight lines, everything else can be hoed out. Thin out the lines to the desired required density. In the next bed, move the lines to another line of direction. These can be sown any time now until the end of May. Most hardy annuals take 100 days from sowing to flowering. If you have a special day in your calendar, work back wards to find your sowing date. Back