Get ready for summer: Alan Titchmarch on transforming your garden …

A the weather warms up, soil conditions improve and new shoots appear everywhere. The surge in strong new growth is the trigger that kick-starts the garden forward into summer, so this is the time to feed, pot-up summer plants and get your lawn sorted.

POTTING

This is the peak season for buying plug plants and young plants of all sorts of frost-tender species intended for summer patio containers.

You’ll find a huge selection at nurseries and garden centres; if you’ve ordered by post they’ll be delivered any time now. Unpack them as soon as they arrive, water if need be and stand them in the light, even if you don’t have time to pot them straight away. 

Since their tiny “starter pots” or “cell-packs” will already be chock-full of roots, they need repotting as soon as possible. Use peat-free seed and cuttings compost and pots that are roughly three and a half inches (9cm) in diameter.

Half fill the pots with compost and make a slight depression in the centre. Tip each young plant gently out of its original container without damaging the rootball and sit it in the centre of its new pot, then fill the gap round the edge with more of the same compost and firm gently. 

If you have your own fuchsia or pelargonium cuttings taken last summer and overwintered indoors, they’ll also be ready for potting.

The technique is exactly the same, but when you’ve rooted several cuttings in the same pot or seed tray, lift the whole lot out onto a sheet of newspaper and gently separate the individual plants with your fingers, keeping as much of the roots intact as possible. Lower each rooted cutting into the partly-filled pot and drizzle compost round the roots, then firm it gently in place.

After potting any plugs/young plants/rooted cuttings, water them lightly in, nip out the very tips of the shoots between your fingertips (this makes the plants grow bushy and flower more profusely), and stand them on a drip tray on a bright, sunny windowsill indoors to grow-on. 

They’ll be at just the right stage to plant outside after the last frost has passed, in mid to late May, to give you a superb summer show.