Spring gardening advice from Sarah Price, QVC's Chelsea Flower Show designer

Hello! Hope you're enjoying the extra daylight and (with any luck) the better weather. The longer days mean it's the perfect time to get working on your gardens. 

I'm spending all my time preparing for the Chelsea Flower Show. There's less than a month to go until we can start working on-site at Chelsea, and the pressure is starting to mount.

I've been busy visiting nurseries and seeing how the plants and trees for the QVC Garden are coming along.

It will be some weeks before the plants begin to bloom. Meanwhile we've been hardening the plants off, which involves moving them temporarily from their warm polytunnel homes to outside. This way they gradually get used to the cooler temperatures, but the unpredictable weather we've had this spring has made this tricky!

Jobs to do in April

Spring is a really busy time for gardeners, with the soil warming up and the plants receiving more sunlight. Here are some of the things I'd recommend doing in April:

• Dig over soil to prepare for planting
• Add mulch to borders
• Rejuvenate borders with perennials and hardy annual flowers
• Break up large clumps of perennials and redistribute them
• Plant your vegetables
• Cut down ornamental grasses

Essential gardening tools

When doing these jobs, you'll save yourself a lot of huffing and puffing if you use the right tools.

A good spade, fork, and secateurs are essential. Personally, I like small border forks and spades for planting delicate plants and forking little spaces. Many people also find trowels useful.

I also like to carry around a small pruning saw when I'm gardening. It's light and easy to use, and as it's curved you can get around branches and saw at an angle. 

Find out about other gardening tools and how to use them.

Ways to attract wildlife into your garden

All this spring growth is great for wildlife. I try and do as much as I can to encourage wildlife into my gardens, and an easy way to do this is to do nothing!

Long grass, rotten logs and stinging nettles will attract lots of wildlife, so if you can, leave a section of your garden untouched.

Planting natural hedgerows is also great for wildlife. Mix plants like hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel and wild rose together to create a wonderful feature.

For more gardening tips and advice, read my other blog entries in Gardening.