Our gardens should be a riot of chirping and buzzing, of ponds full of tadpoles, of rutting hedgehogs, of bursting buds and the freshest green leaves. Fill your ears with birdsong and your eyes with the first of the year’s treasures: bees, bee-flies, blossom and butterflies.
April should be a month of showers that nourish seedlings, plants and the species that eat them without washing them away, that keeps the soil moist but not sodden. If it’s dry, keep your garden hydrated – ideally with rainwater from your water butt. This will help ensure there are worms and caterpillars for birds to feed their chicks and for hedgehogs to fatten up before mating, that there will be mud for house martins to build their nests – that spring can SPRING. As gardeners, we are stewards of our little patches of land, so let’s look after them.