I'm This Morning's gardening expert, get your space spring ready with my 6 tips, including how to banish slugs for good

2022-04-21 09:44:30 By : Ms. ANNIE HU

SPRING is in the air and that means it's finally time to venture into your garden.

If like many of us, you've neglected your outdoor space over the winter, it's not too late to get it looking vibrant in time for spring.

When it comes to maintaining a gorgeous outdoor space, there are a few basics you should know.

Since its officially spring, now is the perfect time to get outside and do the first few bits in preparation for the warmer months ahead.

Daisy Payne is a pro in all things gardening, speaking to Fabulous she shared her top tips for a luscious garden.

The green fingered goddess boasts 16.3 thousand followers on Instagram, all keen to see what gardening tips she’ll share next, and maybe a floral dress or two.

Daisy's simple steps will get you on your way to your dream garden in no time.

First things first, it’s time to get your lawn back to the bright green space it once was.

“They’ll spring back into life which is lovely, so give that a cut but don’t cut it too short, otherwise it’ll go into a bit of shock.

"So make sure your mower isn’t right down low."

Your lawn will probably need a bit of TLC after the harsh winter months, so the first mow of the season is a great way to get things started.

Once it’s been cut it’s important to let the grass breathe a bit.

“Try to keep off it to let it kind of bounce back with the sunshine, and within a matter of days it will come back.

"They can sometimes look a bit sad this time of year, they need the sunshine, don’t we all.”

Once your lawn is in order you can start thinking about adding some colour into your space.

For Daisy this means sowing the gaps in her borders: “I’m going to sow some wildflower seeds, you can get them from the garden centre.

"There’s loads of different verities of them, and loads of different mixes, they’re amazing for wildlife.”

“If you’ve got a bit of a gappy border and you don’t know what to do with it, grab some wildflower seeds, sow it and water it.

"Then later in spring you’ll start to see new life growing and you’ll have a beautiful kind of wildflower border”

Of course, once all your flowers start blooming you risk getting visits from the likes of slugs, snails, and other garden pests.

The green fingered pro says that she steers clear of any nasty chemicals in her own garden and would always opt for something natural.

“I never use chemical sprays or slug pellets, keep away from those, they’re not very good, they’re horrible.”

“Obviously, you want to keep the natural, environmentally friendly options, so I use wool pellets and or grit.”

Go with what you love the look of, and you’ll find your way into gardening through that

“If you plant a new plant, take your wool pellet or your grit and create a ring around your new plant with the wool pellet or grit.

"It doesn’t look amazing when you first plant the plant, but once the it develops you then don’t see the ring around it.”

“But because slugs don’t like to slide over sort of uneven, horrible surfaces the wool is really rough, and the grit is as well.

"Whichever you use you’re gonna protect that plant from being nibbled by the slugs, and it will just essentially send the slugs off in another direction, and off they go. 

“So, your plant’s protected and the slugs aren’t harmed, it’s a win-win really.”

For gardening novices getting your fingers dirty can seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t need to be that complicated.

“Go with what you love the look of, and you’ll find your way into gardening through that.”

There are no tacky trends, no flower too difficult to grow, no colour scheme too out there, it’s all about trial and error.

If you're feeling uninspired and don’t know where to begin, there are some fool proof options to keep in mind.

“You can’t go wrong with lavender; you also can’t go too far wrong with something like a hydrangea.”

“But I would honestly encourage everybody to just go to the garden centre and buy stuff that they just love the look of.”

You can still get your gardening gloves out if you're cooped up in a small flat with only a tiny outdoor area too.

“My garden is tiny really, so the only thing I’ve found is depth.

“If you’ve got a small space, you inevitably kind of go with small things, or add small things into the garden because you feel like you haven’t got much space.

“And I would actually say the opposite, if you’ve got a small space go for things that give you an illusion of depth.

“Put a lovely big tree in a pot, think about the depth of your boarders if you’ve got a small garden like mine having a deeper boarder gives you a sense of more space.

“Don’t be too conservative and go for things that are going to give you that sense of more space.”

Even if you don’t have hundreds to splash at your local garden centre, there’s ways you can invest in your outdoor space.

Luckily for lazy gardeners everywhere, the shrubby, slightly overgrown look is in.

The gardening queen says that a shrubby boarder is a lazy gardener’s best friend, shrubby doesn’t have to mean green and boring either.

“Your hydrangeas, your roses, and lavender are so easy to grow, and you get so much from it, and so does nature.

Is it’s like an assault on your senses, there’s so much to see, so much to take in

"Going for a more shrubby planty theme is great if you haven’t got much time and you’ve got a busy life, but you want colour and you want interest.”

Daisy has been exploring her gardening horizons recently too, traveling to Sri Lanka for the trip of a lifetime.

“It was a perfect blend of real adventure and amazing gardens and spices and the culture and the people.”

“We went to a spice garden, which was amazing. Seeing how they grow all the different spices, like cinnamon for example, it was incredible.

"You don’t realise how much curation there is in growing some of these spices.

“It’s like an assault on your senses, there’s so much to see, so much to take in.”

The trip came at a perfect time for Daisy who found herself newly single and in need of a get-away.

Catch Daisy on Thursday's This Morning for the Holiday 22 series in Sri Lanka from 10am on ITV and ITV Hub.

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