How to make my garden bloom for the Summer

It's a little late to sow anything this month for a quick bloom, you needed to have planted your tulips and daffodil bulbs back in the autumn. 

However if you're looking at what jobs to do in the garden whilst the sun is starting to shine or what to plant or sow right now to bloom in the summer you're in the right place.  

Lots of flowers can be sown in March sweet peas, California poppy, cosmos, and ladybird poppies. Hardy annuals can be sown direct outside, where they are to flower. These do best on 'poor' soil, so do not enrich it with fertiliser

Perennials and bulbs If you haven't cleared away the dead stems in your garden from last year's perennials, now's the last chance to do it before the new growth comes through which makes it really tricky to see what's what. Get to grips with plants such as echinacea and rudbeckias and cut them back as close as you can to the ground.

Fruit and vegetables Sow lettuces, tomatoes, salads and cauliflowers under cover. Outside, you can sow peas, carrots, beetroot, summer and autumn cabbages, herbs, leeks, spinach, turnips, spring onions, broad beans, Brussels sprouts and parsnips.

This is also a good time to start planting out early potatoes, onions, garlic and shallots. Permanent crops, such as asparagus and strawberries, can also be planted now.

March is the latest you should plant bare-root roses. These are usually purchased by mail order and arrive, as the name suggests, not in a container but with their roots exposed, so it's very important to get the plants into the ground as soon as possible.

Roses appreciate well-drained, rich earth, so pile in plenty of well-rotted manure or other soil improver before you plant.

IF YOU ONLY DO ONE THING...

...plant summer bulbs such as gladioli, crocosmia, lilies and agapanthus outside. You can pretty much forget about them once they're in and they'll be a wonderful surprise when august comes. Or put some dahlias in pots under cover where they can start to grow. They can then be planted out once the danger of frosts has passed.