IF YOU have not yet cut back tender shrubby things such as ceratostigma, perovskia, lavender, penstemons and gaura then now is the time to do it. You can cut them back hard as you will see new green shoots coming from the base of the old stems. Give them a bit of a feed of a general purpose fertilizer to pep them up as well.

Talking of fertilizer, I’m going to remind you that chucking the stuff about in a willy-nilly fashion does nobody any good. You can certainly apply it around the base of plants, especially of heavy feeders such as clematis and roses, but in general, do not incline to the ‘throw it at everything’ technique. If you got your soil right before you planted you should not need to use much else. Mulching with something like well-composted organic matter will do far more good and incorporating it into planting holes is far better than anything you can get out of a packet. If you mulch with something yummy then the worms will take it down and improve your soil structure, making the minerals that are in it anyway more available for the plants to use.

The trouble with applying lots of fertilizer is that you will get soft, sappy growth which, in turn, is more prone to late frost damage, and also extremely appealing to pests that like a tasty snack, so be selective.

My agapanthus flowered really well last year. I love them, especially those tall blue ones, and I have them in a pot which I find is the best way to grow them. The consensus of opinion is that they flower best when pot-bound but there will come a time when they will need to be split and re-potted. If your plants have stopped flowering as well as they did then now is the time before they really get going. You don’t have to split them, just pot them into the next size pot with some fresh John Innes No.2 and some added grit for drainage. If you use too large a pot they will simply put on leaf growth and take ages to flower again. I am watering and feeding mine with a high potash feed now to get them going and have moved the pot from under the protective canopy.

The veggie seed-sowing season is on in earnest but a reminder here too – succession-sow rather than all-in-one-go so that you stagger the harvesting over a longer period. It also means that if an early sowing is struck down by something ghastly, you still have a second and third sowing to look forward to.

Our veggie plantlets have been available for a while now so hopefully you have already stocked up with your selection but again – a reminder – brassicas, that is to say cabbages, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli – are all targeted by the cabbage white butterfly unless you have them protected ... pigeons will have a go as well and tend to pull the whole plant out. Use a fine mesh over them from the off.

If the lawn is looking horrible and reseeding is not an option, you may decide to re-turf the lot. Now is a good time before the soil dries out as the temperatures rise. Your best bet is to order good quality turf in when you need it rather than to go somewhere or another where it is stacked up in rolls, drying out and going yellow, so no impulse buying with this, thank you.