With no snow this side of this year, we have been privileged with an early Spring, the daffs have been showing their heads for a while now, my Mums have been flowering since the middle of February!!!

If you can, and between the rain falls, and just as long as the temperature has been around 9 Degrees centigrade, over the last few days........ Cut the lawn.

Large clump forming bamboos will thank you if you did a clear out of some of the older shoots, take out up to a third of the older canes at ground level. This will ‘Open’ the area allowing more rain fall, encouraging new growth.  This new space will also allow in more light, bringing out the markings and colours on the stems. Try to cut Your Bamboo at ground level. Please never cut the bamboo from any other place apart from the base of the plant. If you cut half way up, you have just made a very dangerous spike for someone to fall onto!!!!

Shrubs that will be coming into flower this month will either be brightly coloured or highly scented, this is to attract the small amount of insects out at this time of year, perfect examples are the Japanese Quince and Forsythia, both can be cut for flowers for the house, prune whilst still in tight bud and within days these boring long stems will be flushed with beautiful flowers, and if you have the Quince then your home will smell fantastic as well. Prune summer-flowering shrubs like Buddleja davidii, Spiraea japonica – the late Summer flowering form, hardy Fuchsia and Dogwoods, all should be pruned down to ground level. They all benefit from being cut down hard in mid-late February, give them a feed of top soil, manure or compost. You will benefit from this work in more ways than one. If your garden is prone to late frosts, then cover the cut stems to protect new shoots.

Snow drops are coming out thick and fast, and soon it will be time for my favourites, the Bluebells, they will pop through and show what elegance can be like en masse. If you are thinking about planting bluebells try to avoid using the Spanish Bluebell (Hyacinthoides hispanica), these are not our true ones (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) these taller and more vigorous foreign bluebells are hybridising with our species and taking over!!

Dig manure into the vegetable plot now and the addition of some compost or peat will assist in producing good soil for your plants.

If weeds are breaking through the ground start to pick them out before they get a grip. It's much easier to do a little weeding often than leaving it until it’s a mammoth job. Unfortunately, this is a task that will require to be done often for the coming months. There's no getting away from it but catching the weeds early will make life much, much easier.