Getting the Garden Ready for Spring: The Order to Do Things In

Most of the annoyance in spring garden work comes from doing things in the wrong order and then having to redo them.

Here is the sequence that avoids that, from somebody who mostly turns up in the middle of it.

First: cut back and clear

Before anything gets cleaned, get the hard surfaces clear.

Cut back whatever has grown over the patio edges and the drive during the winter. Clear the last of the leaf litter out of borders next to paving, because it will blow back on.

Do this first for a practical reason: a hedge trimmed after the patio is cleaned drops clippings all over the patio.

Second: gutters

Gutters before anything below them, always.

If a gutter is blocked or a joint is leaking, it will drip onto whatever is underneath through every shower of the spring. Cleaning a patio that sits under a leaking gutter is work you will be repeating.

It is also the point in the year when you can still see what happened over winter. By May the growth has covered the evidence.

Third: the hard surfaces

Patios, paths, drives, steps and decking. This is where I come in.

There are two reasons this goes before planting and not after.

Jet washing produces a slurry of dirt, dead algae and sand, and it goes somewhere. On a garden that has just been planted up, that somewhere is your new bedding. Doing it before means the mess lands on bare soil that is about to be worked anyway.

And the surface needs to be accessible. Moving fifteen pots off a patio is a job. Moving them off, cleaning, and putting them back before the plants have established is a worse one.

If you are having decking done as well, that goes in the same visit.

Fourth: repairs and pointing

Once the surfaces are clean you can actually see what needs doing.

Failed pointing, a cracked slab, a section of block paving that has settled, a rotten deck board. All of these are invisible under a layer of algae and obvious the day after a wash.

This is also why I would rather clean before somebody commits to a repair quote. Half the time the crack somebody was worried about turns out to be a joint full of dirt.

Fifth: sealing, but only after the last frost

Sealing is the one step with a genuine weather constraint, and it is the one people most often try to bring forward.

The surface has to be dry all the way through, which is two or three dry days after a wash. The sealer needs around eight hours without rain to cure. And it should not be applied when a frost is likely, because a partly cured film can be damaged by it.

In this part of Sussex that means late April at the earliest, and May is more reliable.

So: clean in March or April, seal in May. Those are two visits and they are supposed to be.

Sixth: planting and mulching

Now the garden gets planted, and the mulch goes on last so it is not walked across by anybody carrying equipment.

Seventh: furniture back out

Give a sealed surface a couple of days before dragging a heavy table across it.

If you have wooden furniture that has wintered outside, it will want cleaning too. Teak and hardwood furniture cleans up well at low pressure, and I will do it while I am there if you ask.

The mistakes that cost you a second visit

Planting before cleaning. The most common one by a distance, and the reason is understandable: the first warm weekend makes people want to plant. The slurry from a wash will land on it.

Sealing too early. Either on a surface that is not dry through, which gives a milky bloom under the sealer that can only be fixed by stripping it off, or before the last frost.

Cleaning before the gutters are done. As above.

Booking cleaning for late April. Everybody does, and by then nobody has a slot. Book in February for an April date.

Cutting the hedge afterwards. Obvious once said.

The realistic timetable for Sussex

Late January and February: book your cleaning. Do the cutting back on a dry weekend.

March: gutters cleared. Hard surfaces cleaned. Repairs identified.

April: repairs done. Beds prepared.

May: sealing, once the frost risk has passed. Planting. Mulch.

June: sit on it.

The single most useful thing on that list is the February booking, and it costs nothing.

The jobs people forget

Drain gullies. The grating outside the back door and the one on the drive. Both silt up over winter and both cause standing water, which causes the green patch you were about to pay somebody to clean.

Outside taps. Check for a split from the frost before you need it. A tap that has burst internally will look fine and then fail on the first warm Saturday, which is also the day you booked the patio clean.

The gap between decking boards. Packed with a winter’s worth of leaf mulch, holding water against the joists. An hour with a putty knife is worth more to a deck’s life than any product.

Garden furniture. Teak and hardwood furniture that has wintered outside cleans up well at low pressure. I will do it while I am there if you ask; it takes twenty minutes and it saves you scrubbing.

Fence panels and the shed. A soft wash rather than a jet wash. Pressure on a fence panel drives water into the end grain and shortens its life.

Water butts. Empty, rinse and check the tap before the dry spell rather than during it.

If you only do three things

Clear the gutters and the gullies.

Get the hard surfaces cleaned before you plant anything.

Book the cleaning in February rather than April.

Those three are most of the value on this list, and the third one costs nothing except thinking about it two months earlier than feels natural.

A note on ordering trades

If you are having several people in, the sequence matters as much as it does with the jobs.

Anybody working at height goes first, because they drop things.

Hard landscaping or repairs next.

Cleaning after the dust-making work is finished.

Sealing last, and only after everything else has stopped walking across the surface.

Planting after all of it.

I have turned up to clean a patio on the same morning a builder started cutting blocks in the driveway, and neither of us could do our job properly. Ten minutes of coordination avoids it.