Preparing your garden for spring is all about weeding, fertilising, mulching and pruning to encourage new growth, flowers and a thriving veggie patch. While you might not feel like gardening while it’s still cold outside, your garden will love all the attention and repay you with a spring garden that’s bursting with goodness!
1. Weeding
Give your garden beds a spring clean by removing all the weeds before they start flowering and setting seeds. Now is the best time to remove the weeds, as their roots are still shallow making them easy to lift out of the ground. So check your garden beds, borders, lawns and even your pots for weeds.
2. Fertilising
With weeding completed, it’s now time to fertilise your soil and plants. Use an organic fertiliser for your garden beds, slow release fertilisers for your pots and a high nitrogen fertiliser for your lawns. You can also dig in a good quality and well-rotted manure or compost into your garden beds for extra luck!
3. Mulching
When you are preparing your garden for spring growth, don’t forget to cover your newly weeded and fertilised garden beds with a thick layer of organic mulch. This prevents further growth of weeds, minimises runoff and encourages your plants to grow. An organic mulch will also break down and add much needed nutrients to the soil. August and September are the ideal times for mulching in Sydney as the ground is starting to warm up and the mulch helps to lock precious moisture in the soil.
4. Pruning
Now is the time to prune your plants, shrubs, bushes and trees before the early spring growth. These include deciduous trees, grape vines, roses and ornamentals. If your plants flower in spring, however, leave pruning until later in the year or you may reduce your spring display.
5. Planting
For a spring and summer veggie crop, plant spinach, salad greens, peas, broccoli, cabbage and onions in late winter and early spring. Not forgetting begonias, carnations, daisies, marigolds, nasturtiums, snapdragons and poppies for a blaze of spring colour.