How to garden in spring (and the best tools for the job)

The Earth’s orbit of the sun is just long enough that, by the time spring rolls back around, we have all but forgotten the sumptuous reality of the season: how the extended sunlight fills our souls; how the growing green reinvigorates the spirit; how cherry blossom against a blue sky manifests something bigger than beauty alone.

As a gardener, I can wholeheartedly affirm that one of the best ways to enjoy spring is to actively engage with it. Spring is for doing: cutting back perennials; tying and training roses; pruning shrubs. Over the years, I have been leaving more and more of the garden tidy-up for spring, having once seen much of this off in autumn. Common horticultural practice now recognises the importance of leaving dead stems and seed heads standing over winter as shelter and forage for wildlife, so even my small garden requires a good deal of maintenance at this time of year. Plenty of material, then, to set 12 pairs of secateurs on.

First off, the ornamental grasses – my scattered clumps of Molinia, Pennisetum and Chasmanthium – needed cutting down to ground level, their new shoots beginning to mingle with the straw of spent stems. Perennials, including Aster, Agastache, Hylotelephium and Eutrochium, with brittle, yellowing stems, were similarly due a chop.

Next, the shrubs: a now vigorous Buddleia in our sun trap required fairly harsh treatment, reducing each limb in advance of new seismic growth; the black elder was also scaled back, and there was sculpting work to undertake on my two young Viburnums.

Being surrounded by domestic fencing, our little garden depends on the ample coverage of climbing roses: these needed further deadheading and new string ties added to control the rapid new growth (cutting cleanly through string, I often find, separates the good secateurs from the dull).

Shock of the new

After almost two decades of using the same model of secateurs, I found a new favourite. Photograph: Clemmie Power Collins

The great advantage of trying out a range of secateurs was the opportunity to consider new options. Due to their everyday utility, gardeners become very attached to certain brands and models – I definitely have. When I began my first ever gardening job, joining a garden maintenance company doing the rounds of upmarket London homes, the director urged new recruits to use a particular brand of secateurs, for the simple reason that a good pair saves time, money and plants; clean cuts in place of butchery.

And so for almost two decades, I’ve used the same model, and thanks to their robustness and reliability, I’ve replaced them only once (after losing a pair down the leg of my pond waders …). Eager for change, I approached the testing with peak-geek scrutiny, registering their every quality as I went snipping beneath an extraordinarily blue spring sky: their comfort and feel, their cut and heft; how well they clasped and unclasped, and even how easily they could be spotted in the herbage if dropped (secateurs are notorious escapers whenever misplaced).

My final task in the garden was to plant a new rose, a shrubby, semi-climbing Rosa x odorata mutabilis, with blooms that change from apricot to ruby-red. As with all newly planted roses, I chopped its stems back to fresh buds (teaser: saving this privilege for my new favourite pair), and in doing so marked the unequivocal return of glorious, galvanising spring.

This week’s picks

• Sunscreen and snail slime: what skincare experts do – and don’t do – to their skin

• The best espresso machines to unleash your inner barista at home, tested

• ‘Has the texture of feta, but not much else’: the best (and worst) supermarket feta cheese, tested

• Beat brain rot: clear your mind with 55 screen-free activities, from birdwatching to colouring books

• Rainbow vases, vintage soap dishes and crystal bike bells: 15 colourful pick-me-ups to elevate your everyday

Editor’s pick

Spring cleaning isn’t only for inside the home. Photograph: Andy Shaw

It’s hard to pay attention to the first beautiful blooms of spring if you’re distracted by the filthy state of your patio or decking. A good pressure washer will make that all-important spring tidy-up less of a back-breaking experience (and make for very satisfying before-and-after photos, too). Our reviewer Andy Shaw has been out tackling his patio, his car and a (very grateful) neighbour’s decking to sort the best from the rest.

Monica Horridge
Deputy editor, the Filter

In case you missed it …

A solid head torch and warmer evenings make dusky spring adventures a pleasure. Photograph: anatoliy_gleb/Getty Images/iStockphoto

A brave editor at the Filter once went camping in Britain over the early May bank holiday and had to scrape frost off her tent in the morning. But there are upsides: campsites are often blissfully uncrowded, and as long as you take lots of blankets for the night, the days can be glorious. Don’t forget your head torch for evening dog walks and loo trips (read our comprehensive review of the best head torches before you buy one).

Get involved

A fresh start: how do you tackle the worst household chores? Photograph: Helin Loik-Tomson/Getty Images

What’s your most hated cleaning job (you do clean your house, don’t you)? The loo? The oven? The windows? The stairs? Or trying to get rid of the dust that settles on top of books? And is there anything that makes these jobs easier? Let us know by emailing us at [email protected].