It's not all birdsong and blossom: The gardener’s spring-time battles

Parakeet in blossom tree — A ring-necked parakeet munches on the flowers of a cherry blossom tree in St James's Park, London.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Kicking up the dew on the fields as the sun warms the early morning mist is the first of many signs that spring is on its way. Blackthorn is flowering and even urban roundabouts are lit up with yellow gorse. Yet nothing quite stirs the heart as the sight of the first magnolias covered with so many soft pink flowers that their bare branches are almost hidden.

We tend to think of spring in terms of warmth and sun, but it is the constant lengthening of the days that really makes the difference. The wrens and robins are in no doubt, appearing after months of absence to dart joyfully along flowerbeds before dashing back into the safety of a dark hedge as the garden gate opens.

Feel down for the warming of the soil and watch for the accompanying spurt in weed growth, according to the gardener’s adage. When fresh hummocks of hairy bittercress pop up seemingly overnight in the vegetable beds and innocent-looking rosettes of dandelions appear as if out of nowhere, the time has come to get out into the garden again. Whatever we have in mind this year — be it digging a new rose bed or making a no-dig vegetable plot, planting an orchard or experimenting with a gravel garden —there will be some sort of work required.

Magnolias flowering in the early spring sunshine at Caerhays Castle in Cornwall.

Gardens need gardeners and, as anyone who has tried to find help looking after theirs will surely know, it is not easy to find experienced gardeners. To find someone to come to mow the grass or cut the meadow is one thing, but someone who understands how to prune and tie in a climbing rose or who can avoid slicing off the glistening carmine shoots of an emerging peony when hoeing weeds is quite another. People with real knowledge are as rare as hen’s teeth, which is why anyone with a good gardener will never offer to share them.

Horticultural expertise has to be gleaned on the job: you cannot learn to prune a clematis or wisteria without a pair of secateurs in hand. We still mourn the closure of the many local parks departments that once offered hands-on training, but all is not lost. This month saw the launch of Hortistry, a scheme championed by some of the finest gardeners in the country. It will provide free masterclasses with horticultural experts to professional gardeners who want to brush up on their skills.

There are also scholarships supported by places such as Sissinghurst in Kent and Great Dixter in East Sussex, among many others, as well as the WRAG scheme run by Working for Gardeners. This offers people who want to retrain as gardeners paid, part-time practical training in a garden where they can work and learn from the owner or resident head gardener. This is such a clever idea — a match made in Heaven or, rather, in the garden.

This feature originally appeared in the March 18, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

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