Spring is sprung, the grass is riz, and gardening is where the action is. Now’s the time to get your garden ready for summer, and what could be better in the hot summer sun than the scent of lavender wafting in the breeze and reed grasses rustling gently?

Here's some helpful advice on spring cleaning your garden, as well as what to plant. Lavender and grass are great choices for the season!

Spring clean your garden

Want your garden to look stunning this summer? Now's the time to trim, pluck, feed and prune it into shape. Here are a few 'spring-cleaning' tips to get your garden in top shape.

  • Prune and shape any frost damaged or shaggy plants.

  • Towards the end of September, pinch back plants like Fuchsia and Daisy bushes to encourage them to be become bushy.

  • Prune back spring flowering shrubs when they have finished blooming.

  • Remove old leaves and feed Bearded Irises.

  • This is the last chance to lift and divide perennials.

  • Remove old spent winter annuals and replant with summer annuals.

  • Mulch soils to add organic matter.

  • Service irrigation systems.

  • Watch for aphid on new growth and treat with Aphid killer or organic alternative.

  • Early fruiting trees should be sprayed with Lebaycid when 80 percent of the petals have dropped.

  • Feed Strawberries with 3:1:5 fertiliser.

  • Feed Roses with 5:1:5 or 3:1:5 fertiliser.

  • Feed Camellias, Azaleas and Gardenias with Phostrogen Acid Food.

  • Plant summer flowering bulbs like Nerine, Zephranthus (Storm Lily), Crocrosmia and others.

  • Sow seed for cucumbers, tomatoes, marrows, carrots, peppers, chillies and chard.

  • Sow Nasturtium seeds for use in summer salads.

  • If you're gardening on the Highveld, remember that Spring is hot and dry so keep your more fragile plants well watered. You should also stake plants that could be damaged by strong winds.

For the love of lavender

Lavenders are extremely beautiful and highly aromatic shrubs, perfect for Mediterranean, Tuscan or cottage style gardens. They can be planted in rockeries, clipped for topiary or hedges, used as an accent plant in herbaceous borders or planted for interest in herb gardens. They also make stunning specimens in containers and the aromatic leaves can be used for both medicinal and cosmetic purposes.

Most lavenders start flowering from spring through to autumn. They love the sun, don't mind the frost and are so easy to grow that they will flourish just about anywhere.

Like us, lavenders each have their strong points, so here are a few suggestions of my favourite:

  • Best flowerer: Lavender pinnata
    This good old fashioned variety just gets on and flowers without any help. It has grey foliage while the sister plant Lavender dentata has green foliage. Both are best planted in a garden bed, but will also grow well in a pot.

  • Best for containers: Lavender stoechas
    This extremely floriferous plant is available in various hybrids with a rainbow variety of colours. It grows into a very neat and compact shrub and is excellent for containers and clipping into hedges.

  • Best for Hedges: Lavender angustifolia
    The traditional English or Common lavender makes a very neat pale grey hedge. When left uncut they are just beautiful planted en masse. The purple flowers are on long stems, making them ideal in floral arrangements and posies.

  • Best medicinal Lavender: Lavender intermedia "Margaret Roberts"
    South Africa's own true lavender, it flowers virtually all year round with light blue to violet flowers. The flowers are an instant attraction to butterflies and bees and one can now even find lavender honey! This lavender can be used for a soothing and 'destressing' tea, a calming bath or in cosmetic preparations.

    Bring on the grass

    Grasses and reeds are so now! Echeveria, Sanseveria, Aspidistra, Ornamental grasses, Sedges, Thatching Reeds and the Juncus species, (common rushes) are the new way to give your garden that new, clean, designer look and feel. Most are ideal for containers, all look chic when mass planted and there are even suitable varieties for wetland, dry and coastal gardens.

    Look out for the small ornamental grasses, in particular the Carex family. They are tuft forming, low growing to heights of only 20cm or less, evergreen, hardy and ideal for semi-shade to sun conditions. Their foliage is great for dramatic accent and contrast in containers, hanging baskets, window boxes, conventional and wetland garden beds.

    There is also a Carex comans 'Bronze' available that has deep bronze foliage, which will look fantastic when planted together with one of the indigenous thatching reeds like Chondropetalum tectorum, which has beautiful, architectural tuft-forming leaves. You could also try the Carex 'Frosted Curls', this cute plant has peppermint-coloured curly foliage, which is fine textured and very graceful. It likes to be planted in full sun or light afternoon shade and enjoys well-drained soil.




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