Essential jobs for now

Use the holiday to keep the garden tip-top

- Ruth Hayes

WHAT a difference a year makes! This time 12 months ago we were in the first lockdown, garden centres were closed and in a perfect storm of chaos, garden websites were crashing under the demand of millions of new gardeners!

Hopefully this year there are still lots of new gardeners out there, but you are finding it easier to source plants and products as life starts to open up again.

The first May bank holiday is here and the three-day weekend offers gardeners old and new the opportunity to catch up on late spring tasks and get their plots ready for the months ahead.

For me, the bank holiday will be a mixture of plant care and general garden maintenance, keeping the patio clean, winkling out the weeds, making sure the borders are sharply edged and checking that I have no need to start worrying about pests and other problems just yet.