Like the calm before the cool, winter preparations are smooth sailing this month with Life is a Garden’s crisp April checklist. Gardening during the cooler months definitely has its own challenges, but also so many exciting flowers and veggies to look forward to. Did someone say spring bulbs already? Head over to your GCA Garden Centre and let’s plant right in!

Chillax with flowers

• Bulba-licious beauties: You can plant all spring-flowering bulbs now, hooray! Bulbs with fingers or claws, like ranunculi, should be planted with their fingers pointing downwards. Try plating small bulbs like anemone, leucojum, muscari, lachenalia, tritonia, and ranunculus, or larger bulbs such as hyacinth, freesia, and Dutch iris.
• Pretty and pleasing: April is the perfect time to buy and plant out pretty primula, poppy, pansy, and gazania seedlings.
• Indoor inspiration: Spathiphyllum, known also as Peace lily, is an easy-care, low-light houseplant with majestic, long-lasting white blooms.

• Colourful corners: Try planting a corner of ericas, restios, leucadendrons, and Proteas – they provide stunning autumn and winter colour.
• Balmy blooms: Plant cool-season annuals at the base of bare-stemmed bushes. Choose sun lovers like alyssum, calendulas, dwarf snapdragons, lobelias, Namaqualand daisies, phlox, and pansies.
• Bedding babe: Available in many bright hues, Cineraria enjoy moist soil in semi-shade beds.
• Pot of purple: Lavender is waiting to perk up your patio pots with an easy-going purple flush.

Feeding and frost

• Feed aloes and flowering succulents for a glorious winter show.
• If you’re living in a frost-prone area, be sure to purchase some frost protection from your GCA Garden Centre before winter arrives in full force.
• Continue feeding your evergreen cool-season lawn to ensure it remains lush during winter.

In the grow-zone

• Grow garlic bulbs, which you can purchase from your GCA Garden Centre. Pick a sunny spot with well-drained soil and plant the cloves about 15cm apart in drills of about 7cm deep.

The flu season started early this year with the arrival of Covid-19, which has had an unprecedented impact on the whole world. With still no cure in sight for the common cold, our best line of defence is prevention. Gardening is your secret weapon, folks! Did you know that you can grow your own powerful medicine? Sustainable living has never been more important, so let’s transform gardening from just a hobby to a flourishing lifestyle choice! Here’s why and how you can grow your own natural remedies and assemble yourself a little home-grown first aid kit:

Garlic

First up is Garlic – a cure-all, champion vegetable!. Classified as part of the onion genus, garlic is jam-packed with the good stuff. It has antimicrobial, antiviral and antifungal properties, which help relieve cold and flu symptoms. Garlic is high in nutrients and vitamins, especially flu-fighting Vitamin C and B6, which assist your body in recuperating faster and shortening your downtime. Planting garlic is fairly easy; pop them in the ground about 5 cm apart in a sunny spot with well-drained soil. Whether you are nursing a cold or preparing your body to fight one, a couple cloves in the garden are always recommended as part of your first aid kit!

Lemons

Growing and tending to a lemon tree teaches patience, commitment, embodying what it means to reap the fruits of your labour, and for some it even represents childhood memories and a sense of nostalgia. This powerful medicine is loaded with Vitamin C and is rich in potassium with twice as much Vitamin C as oranges. Lemons support and strengthen the immune system in fighting off the winter nasties. If your granny believed in drinking lemon water, either hot or cold, she’s on to something. Freshly squeezed lemon juice increases the absorption of iron, which further promotes a resilient immune system.

Happy autumn and a merry March, maintenance month! It’s time to prepare those beds for some annual autumn planting and sow them seeds for the new season. Get busy in the garden and give your seedlings a nutritious head start.

You should work in about 3 to 5cm of compost into the soil, as well as, a handful of bonemeal or superphosphate per square metre. This will ensure that plants have all the nutrition they require to get off to a great start. Give your soil nutrients so that the plants in your garden have the ability to become strong and healthy. Use a general fertilizer like a 2:3:2 or one that contains more potassium such as 8:1:5.

What to Sow

Autumn means it’s time to start sowing winter and spring flowering annual seeds. Some of our favourites to sow now are:

Sweet Peas: Their seductive fragrance in the garden or as cut-flowers in the home is like no other. The seed is generally available in mixed colours, which are a gorgeous mix of mostly pastel colours, for both dwarf and climbing varieties. The climbing Sweet Peas will need a sunny spot with supports to climb up – like a trellis, fence or an arch. Sweet peas will be happiest with their roots are in cool, moist soil, so it is a good idea to plant low-growing annuals in front of them to keep the roots shaded, mulching will also work well. The secret to fabulous Sweet peas starts with the soil preparation. Dig over a trench of soil, next to the supports, to the depth of a garden fork and add plenty of compost and preferably manure too. Add a handful of bonemeal or superphosphate per square metre, also sprinkle a handful of Dolomitic or Agricultural lime per running metre and dig it in.