How to create your spring garden

This dreamy spring flower garden can be yours with a little prep and planning.The secret is in the soil - and flower choice. Ideal for pots and planters, for balconies, court yards and garden beds, follow these five easy steps for success and your garden will bloom like a dream too. 

 

STEP 1 

PLAN AND POSITION

Choose a sunny spot for your new flower garden. Make a plan of the area with taller spires such as snap dragons and delphiniums at the back and clumps of flowering blooms at the front. Choose your colour palette from what’s available and what you love. 

STEP 2 

SOIL PREPARATION

Dig organic compost through your garden. If you don’t have access to home-made compost, you can buy soil conditioner in bags at your local garden centre. If your garden soilis heavy, you can improve its drainage by adding grit and/or sand. Alternatively, you can raise the level of your garden bed with stone, brick or timber garden edging.

STEP 3

CHOOSE YOUR PLANTS

Buy seedlings at your local garden centre. We chose snapdragon, pansies, delphinium, ranunculus and tulips. Ranunculus corms and tulip bulbs can be planted in small pots now through the end of June, then transferred into your flower garden once they're established and growing.

STEP 4 

PLANTING IN THE GARDEN

Place your potted bulbs and seedlings in situ. Water seedlings and gently remove each one from its cell without disturbing the roots. Take care with spacing to allow each plant room to grow. Transplant your potted bulbs, taking care not to damage tender roots. Water all plants with a diluted seaweed solution, applied in a watering can with a fine rose. For agentle, rain-like shower, fit the rose facing upwards; this allows water to fall evenly. A downward-facing rose offers a more focused flow. Avoid washout and dribbling by withdrawing the watering can from the area before it empties completely.

STEP 5 

AFTER CARE FOR YOUR NEW GARDEN

Once all your new plants are watered in, you should apply a mulch over the entire garden taking care not to ‘choke’ each plant. Choose from sugar cane mulch, lucerne, bagged mulch or home-made compost. This mulch will stop weeds germinating and will keep roots cool as spring temperatures climb.

TOP TIP 

Plant ranunculus and tulips until the end of june. Then plant lilies!

  

What we grew, that you can too!

SNAPDRAGON

Fragrant spires invibrant colours. Plant them after frost; they bloom in 8 weeks.

RANUNCULUS

Spring stunners with multi-petalled blooms. Plant by the end of June. Also great in pots. Then plant lilies.

DELPHINIUM

Tall, hardy and colourful. Prefers sun, rich soil and requires staking. Feed them well and protect from wind.

TULIP ‘PURPLE PRINCE’

Elegant and easy, these soft purple blooms emerge from pre-formed bulbs. Plant them in the sun by end of June for a spring show.

PANSY

These are cool-season favourites in a huge range of colours. They grow best in sun or part shade. Dead head them for longer flowering.

10 more plants to grow 

• Cosmos

• Californian poppy

• Love-in-a-mist

• Lavender

• Columbine

• Bearded iris

• Paper daisies

• Lilies

• Polyanthus

• Primula

• Alyssum