Expert Advice: 5 Spring Gardening Tips for a Thriving and Tidy Garden
Expert advice by Helen Parsons
As the chill of winter begins to thaw and the promise of spring awakens, it's time to find joy in the garden. Some preparation for the season ahead not only enhances its beauty but also sets the stage for a thriving and vibrant space. We recently caught up with Helen Parsons of Helen Parsons Landscape Design to talk all things gardens. Here are some of her top tips to prepare your garden for the coming months.
1. Clip Your Evergreens for a Tidy Garden
Early spring is the ideal time to clip your evergreen shrubs into shape. This doesn't have to be full topiary, but just shaping into soft mounds can very quickly change the feel of the space and give tidy structure amongst later summer abundance.
2. Set Up Rainwater Harvesting
Saving rainwater for use in the garden is not only cost saving, but essential to plants getting established. Hosepipe bans are likely to be a regular occurrence and nature prefers rainwater as it is free from additives and treatments. But when installing water butts, watch out: We often find diverters in the wrong place on the downpipe.
Helen’s designs include ideas for using the rainwater as a resource rather than waste – which is a whole blog in itself. If you look, your garden will probably have opportunities to direct rainwater from sheds into borders for natural irrigation.
3. Have Fun with Deadwood and Clippings
Helen is keen to promote a different view of dead and dying wood! It’s an essential part of any garden's ecosystem, providing habitat, shelter and a food source for multiple small mammals and bugs, plus it encourages and hosts fungi which is essential for the health of your soil. Adding log stacks is a fantastic way to do this, or if you need something to create a boundary or partition, why not craft a dead hedge? You can even grow Blackberries, a climber or rambling rose through it. These are great Easter projects to do with the kids! We love these structures but if they are not for you, tucking logs and trimmings under your hedges or shrubs at the back of your border works perfectly well.
4. Summer Bulbs and Bare Root Perennials
Summer flowering bulbs are often overlooked, but are a great, budget friendly way of adding more colour and interest later in the year. Not only are they cost effective but avoids the carbon cost of a plastic pots full of compost. Plenty of perennials can also be bought bare root in this way. It's not too late to plant summer alliums, crocosmia and even bare root peonies.
5. Bring Your Shed Alive
Often sheds can be quite dominating in a garden, but they offer a wonderful opportunity to grow something up and over them which softens them to the eye. There is a climber or rambler for all aspects. You don't need a trellis - just eyelets on the corner posts with wire between them forms a framework to tie in climbing or rambling roses, clematis or even a wisteria. If you like to repaint or treat your shed regularly, picking a climber that either responds well to a hard prune (such as established roses or clematis), or one that you tie in the main framework and could be lifted away to treat, is the way to go. If it's in a sunny spot you could also think about a winter flowering climber - winter jasmine is joyous or perhaps a delicate winter flowering clematis.
Additional Tips for your Spring Garden
While the above five tips form the backbone of Helen’s advice, here are some more things for you to think about this Spring:
Does Your Garden Have Good Bones?
Now is the perfect time to sit back, preferably with a favourite drink, look at your garden before all the new growth really gets underway and ask yourself 'does it have good bones'? In other words, without the perennials, is there still interest and structure in the garden? This could be the interesting shape of a shrub without its leaves, attractive or colourful bark of a dogwood or scent from shrubs which are flowering such as Sarcococca or Daphne.
What Do You Want from the Garden?
The garden is ready for the season, but sitting back and asking yourself what you want or importantly need from the garden and why. Are you going to have time to follow through? Are your ideas of the garden influenced by external pressures? Gardens should nurture you, so understanding what you need from the garden to be part of the nurturing process should be high up the priorities list. Helen and her team work closely with clients to work these points through.
Lift the Skirts of Shrubs and Small Trees
Another ‘low effort high impact task’ is to remove the lower whippy stems and branches of medium to large shrubs and small trees. This exposes the beautiful shape of the stems, allows you to see through them, and offers a wonderful opportunity for underplanting, adding more colour, texture and interest to the garden.
Hedges & Edges
Clipping your hedges and recutting or tidying your edges is a low effort way to have a high impact. The garden will at once feel tidier and more inviting. Helen says this is like making your bed.
And finally,
Don't Forget the Joy of Spring!
Bottle that feeling you have now, the joy and hope that seeing the daffodils in flower, crocuses carpeting under trees, the tulips emerging and the first bees visiting those spring bulbs and try and remember it in autumn! Next spring feels like a long time away but remembering to buy and plant your bulbs in the autumn will help enhance this feeling next spring.
In search of things to do during Spring but aren't sure what's on? Check out our Ultimate Guide to Spring in Oxfordshire.
About Helen Parsons
Helen Parsons is a renowned garden designer specialising in creating personalised outdoor spaces that blend creativity and functionality. With years of experience and a passion for sustainable gardening, Helen has helped countless clients transform their gardens into stunning havens. For more information about her work, visit Helen Parsons Landscape Design.
Preparing your garden for summer is a rewarding endeavour that sets the stage for a flourishing season. By following these expert tips from Helen, we hope you can both ensure your garden is ready and bring you closer to the beauty and vitality of spring. Happy gardening!
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