APRIL has come to us with sunshine and lots of colour to brighten up things in the garden and in the pots.

Summer bedding and summer trailing plant are available at the garden center. One of the main questions I get each year is how many plants should I use for my baskets.

When planting baskets the main thing to consider hw much room do your plants have to expand. So for a 14” basket I use 4 plants and I use a filler for extra colour and some- times I add a centre piece to them like a geranium or even a Bidens. But of course, you can squeeze more in but you aren’t leaving the room for growth.

Mixed baskets are very popular and you don’t necessarily need to put in trailer.

Choosing what to grow can be confusing but a few things to consider are do you want a centre piece with a bit of height, do you want trailing, are you going with a theme or one type of colour.

Hopefully these pointers will help you when filling your containers and hanging baskets.

There is lots of gardening going on at the moment and lots of rockers getting new life put in to them.

Some of the most popular plants at the minute are Aduja repens a lovely ground cover perennial with a blue flower. Saxifraga is a lovely red or white flowering perennial one of the most popular is Aubrieta is has a lovely spreading habit and can overhang on the edge of rockery it comes in shades of purple and red.

The following ones I love because they are great to self seed and give back extra plants; Aquilegia commonly known as grannies bonnet, America known as seathrift and pop- pies. They come in a selection of colours and they are stunning .

Heather are ideal for the rockery area and are great for slopes and will spread and give great colour.

We have a lovely selection of standard Trees at the moment so if you have a small garden these are ideal. The cherry blossoms and weeping willows are fantastic and ideal even standard roses are lovely when in flower.

So on that note I will just leave you with this tip to keep your plants watered while we are enjoying this dry spell of weather.

Happy Gardening everone.

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