Being creative when painting outside features can help to show a real sense of personal style and it needn’t be a time-consuming job; you can easily inject some colour by painting plant pots. To create a truly relaxing scheme, try painting several plant pots in different strengths of blue and green. Colours such as Arsenic, Breakfast Room Green and Borrowed Light combine together to create a tranquil environment.

Terracotta plant pots can also easily be transformed by using a soft dusky colour like Brassica, or if you really want to create an impact, using darker colours like Down Pipe will contrast beautifully with the terracotta of the pots.

Farrow & Ball exterior paints are available for all wood, metal and masonry surfaces outside. For best results, use Exterior Masonry on plant pots.

 

TOP TIP

Back injuries are common in the garden, especially at the start of the season. Don’t get caught out. A few simple warm-up exercises before you start digging, mowing or lifting heavy pots should keep you accident-free.

Scottish Gardener:

 

WHAT TO DO NOW

Easter is the traditional start of the gardening year and if you haven’t already been busy in the greenhouse or outdoors, then now’s the time to get the growing season underway. Most seeds can be sown now, either under cover or in the open. Dahlias that were started off in trays early in the season will be ready to pot up now and if you planted your sweet peas back in February, then they should be strong, young seedlings by now. But don’t worry if you haven’t done anything yet. There’s still time to catch up, so make the most of any mild days and enjoy spring as it unfolds all around.

 

 

  • Sow hardy annuals in modules now for planting out in May.
  • Stake perennials to support their flowers and foliage as they grow.
  • Plant up hanging baskets with bedding plants, hanging them inside a greenhouse until early summer.
  • Clean the leaves of lemon trees and begin feeding them with citrus food.
  • Chit and plant out potatoes, beginning with second earlies and moving onto maincrops later in April.
  • Once tomato seedlings develop true leaves, move them into individual pots.
  • Sow carrots, radishes and lettuces outdoors and thin out as soon as they start to appear.
  • Open the greenhouse doors on days when the sun shines.
  • Grow salad leaves in succession, sowing a little every two weeks for a continuous supply.
  • Start watering evergreen agapanthus that have spent the winter under cover.
  • Take cuttings from pelargoniums, setting three or four around the edges of small pots containing gritty compost.
  • Before cutting the grass, mover the blades to their highest setting and aim for a light trim.
  • Scrub moss from and steps paths. Special cleaning products are available, but sand and a stiff broom will also do the job.
  • Move patio furniture outdoors, coating wooden furniture with varnish if necessary.