Arthur's top tips

• Plant up your pots with spring colour and scents.
• Spring clean with the range of ‘Hero’ outdoor cleaning products. Easy to use with very little work.
• Make sure to warm soil with cloches or sheets of polyethene for early sowings of peas and beans which dislike cold wet soil.
• Sow seeds of the following crops this week if conditions are fine: beetroot, parsnips, turnips, onions, peas and mange tout, broad beans, lettuce and salad leaves, spinach, radish, rocket, pak choi, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprouts.
• Sprinkle sulphate of potash fertiliser around clumps of tulips to boost flowering.
• Secure emerging clematis shoots to supports, taking care not to snap their fragile stems and apply slug pellets.
• Plant out onion sets and shallots.
• Place collars around the stems of brassicas to prevent an attack of cabbage root fly.
• Continue to use ‘Osmo Moss killer’ on your lawn after applying a PH stabilizer.
• Trim leggy rosemary bushes to promote bushy new growth.
• Start to regularly spray roses that are vulnerable to disease, I always alternate between different sprays so they don’t have a chance to build up a resistance against it.
• Start sowing salad crops at regular 3-4 week intervals to ensure a regular supply for picking.
• Tidy up hedges, but before you start cutting make sure no birds are nesting in them.
• In your greenhouse or tunnel hang yellow sticky traps among plants to catch whitefly and other flying pests.
• Throw sheets of fleece over fruit trees on frosty nights to protect blossom.
• If you have a greenhouse, you can now plant tomatoes, melons and pepper plants in big pots or in an instant planter (a fatter type of grow bag).

Spring is here and the plants and trees are all looking hungry after the long winter. Feeding is the key to getting the best displays and crops from your garden. A number of chemical elements are essential for plant growth. Three are required in relatively large amounts, nitrogen for leaf growth, phosphorus for root development and potash for strengthening resistance to disease and poor growing conditions. A general purpose fertilizer like ‘Growmore’ has these elements in roughly equal amounts. Manure or fertilizer? -  the age old argument. Actually, there is nothing to argue about both are vital and neither can be properly replaced by the other. The role of bulky organic matter (farmyard manure, garden compost) is to make the soil structure good enough to support a vigorous and healthy crop. The role of fertilizers is to provide the plants with enough nutrients that they reach their full potential in this soil. In your vegetable garden, one of the most important uses for a general purpose fertilizer is to provide a bass dressing just before sowing or planting. Crops which take some time to mature like purple sprouting broccoli or curly kale will need one or more top dressings during the season. I find it always better to use a liquid seaweed feed on these occasions as the powder or granular feeds can cause scorch damage if applied to the leaves or as a time-saving alternative you can always use a slow release fertilizer to steadily release nutrients into the soil or compost for 6 months. Always read the instructions as every feed is different and if you can choose an organic brand. 

• Plant Tree and carpet lily bulbs in pots for colourful summer displays.
• Prune shrub roses to low new shoots.
• Be on the look out for slugs and snails, which will attack emerging shoots of perennials.
• Plant Jerusalem artichokes in well-prepared soil.
• Grow early-maturing potatoes in a bag of compost.
• Fork compost into beds to prepare soil for planting.
• Chit potatoes by standing them in trays in a warm bright position until they develop small shoots.
• Dig out problem weeds and emerging annual weeds.
• Plant Jerusalem artichokes.
• Cover rhubarb with forcing jars to encourage long, delicious pale stems.
• Sow seeds of the following crops outside or under cloches: carrots, beetroot, broad beans, salad onions, cauliflower, cabbage, spinach, leeks, lettuce, rocket, coriander, mixed salad or stir fry leaves, radish, turnip, peas, lettuce and Swiss chard.
• In your greenhouse, you can sow summer bedding plants, such as petunias, geranium, verbena and busy Lizzie. In the vegetable world, you can sow seeds of cucumbers, tomatoes, aubergines and peppers to raise summer crops.
• Trim back old shoots of perennials left for winter interest, taking care not to damage emerging new growth.
• Prune tall, leggy mahonia by cutting off the leafy rosette at the top of stems to encourage branches to develop below.

Give it a try… Chilli plants will thrive on a sunny window sill or in a greenhouse. They have a long cropping season, so you could still be harvesting fresh chillies in December. You will need just two small pots to sow your chilli seeds. It’s important to use a good quality seed compost. Fill up your pots almost to the top with compost; you should water before you add the seed to make sure the compost is nice and moist. Spread out 4 or 5 seeds per pot and then sprinkle over some more compost or perlite if you have it. Cover the pot with cling film to create your own mini tunnel and then pop on a sunny windowsill. It’s very important to keep them in a bright place to ensure they germinate.  When your seeds have germinated take off your cling film and leave on the windowsill. Keep them nice and moist, not too wet and not too dry! Voila in 7/8 weeks you should have a pot filled with chilli plants waiting to be separated and potted into their own pots. Keep on your sunniest windowsill and your chilli plants will reward you with spicy meals for many months to come.

March is the perfect planting time for a wide range of garden plants. It’s a particularly good time to plant roses. To get the best from these long-lived garden plants it's worth paying attention to the soil ahead of planting. Roses prefer a site rich in organic matter, so on sandy or heavy clay soils mix in some compost, at least two spades deep if possible. To plant, dig a hole twice as wide as the container the rose is growing in, but only 5-10cm deeper. Fork over the soil in the bottom of the hole, and add a 5-10cm layer of compost. Set the rootball centrally in the hole .To further boost the soil, mix in Osmo Rose Food to the excavated planting soil. This pelleted mix is enriched with horse manure – well-loved by roses - and will set plants off to the best start this spring. Set the soil back around the rootball, firming down with your heel as you go to knock out any air gaps. Water the rose in, then apply a mulch of compost around the base of the plant to help retain moisture and reduce weed growth. You can look forward to the beautiful roses of the future.