How To Get Your Garden Ready For Summer

How To Get Your Garden Ready For Summer

Unless you’re a professional gardener – or an extremely committed amateur – chances are you’ve only done the bare minimum to maintain your garden over the winter months.

If that’s the case, now is the perfect time to head outside and give your garden some TLC in time for summer, so brush the cobwebs off your lawnmower and get your green space sorted out with our top gardening advice.

General cleaning and maintenance

There’s only one place to start and that’s with a little spring cleaning. After months of rain and frost, weeding, cleaning garden furniture, mending and repainting old fencing, sweeping and washing down decking and trimming hedges should all be high on your jobs list.

Tidying up borders and any flower beds is a good idea too. Remove old blooms and prune any untidy shrubs while you’re at it – this will let you see exactly where the gaps are and allow you to plan what plants you need to fill them.

Tend to the grass

The lawn’s not going to cut itself, so it’s time to fire up the mower.

If your lawn’s been badly neglected over winter, you may need to take some steps beyond simply cutting it. Rake any dead grass off the surface to allow new grass to grow freely, then sprinkle grass seed on any bare patches. Finally, treat the grass with lawn feed to make it thicker and greener.

Check your gardening equipment

Even if you remembered to clean and dry your tools before you put them away last winter, they’re probably going to need cleaning and sharpening before you use them again.

Start off by cleaning everything with a firm brush, then sharpen as necessary – this guide from the RHS shows you how. You should also clean any old grass from the blades and underside of your lawnmower and make sure the cable is still in one piece. 

Get planting

Gardens are all about plants, flowers and colour so have a look on Pinterest and Instagram for inspiration and don’t be afraid to emulate what you see.  

Go for a combination of colours and heights, with the taller plants at the back and smaller ones further forward. Alternatively, if you like to cook, why not create a herb garden? Not only do they look great, they smell nice too!

Clean the barbecue

What do we want? Barbecues!

What don’t we want? To invite people round for a barbecue only to discover that it has bits of cooked-on sausage all over it and needs cleaning before you can use it!

Save yourself the embarrassment by cleaning your grill racks and any equipment – like tongs – using one of these simple methods today.

Don’t forget the shed!

Take everything out of your shed and get rid of anything you don’t use or that’s broken beyond repair. While it’s still empty, give it a thorough sweep and check for any loose panels or roof damage, making repairs where necessary. Touch up any paintwork in need of some TLC while you’re at it. 

Need some help with your garden?

As well as improving the appearance of your property, gardening offers lots of additional benefits, such as improving your mental health and providing good exercise.

At Leeds Credit Union, one of our loans can help you create the garden of your dreams. We have loans available from £250 to £25,000 – find out more here.