I’m writing this in the first week of April and the country is gripped in a tight band of fear and anxiety. Hard to believe it’s only a month ago since I wrote about the bad weather and how it was hitting growth and under foot conditions.

What a difference a month makes.

Listen to "Mairead's Garden Diary, April" on Spreaker.

Through it all, I thank God that I have a garden. It’s a perfect antidote to all the tension. Between the garden and the lambing shed I am getting out of the house.

All around me nature is bursting into life. Even the little birds have almost abandoned their feeders and you wouldn’t want to be walking around with your mouth open for fear of catching a mouthful of tiny flies.

Deadhead

The pots of daffodils that I love, took to flower in February and the poor things got an awful doing with the bad weather. So much so that they have all gone over and left my pots looking very bare. Thankfully most of the other daffodils were late-opening and are looking great now.

Hellebores stalwarts of the spring garden.

Remember to keep deadheading as the flowers die away. It doesn’t matter whether you nip out the complete flower stem or just the seed head.

Don’t touch the leaves until they have yellowed and withered away. That will be early June. Holding on to the leaves and getting rid of the seed heads means all the energy is going into the flower bulb to help make for more and better daffodils next year.

New life

Looking around the garden I see the tulips are about to burst into life. Roses, especially the carpet roses are doing really well with masses of buds.

Rosa rugosa - a monster of a hedge greening up.

The Rosa rugosa hedge is greening up as is the white thorn hedge on the lane. I planted polyanthus years ago and they are still going strong as are the hellebores.

Hardy polythanthus.

The latter are really hardy and give the garden colour in the bleakest months of the year. The honey flower – melianthus major – and its strange flowering heads survived the winter. So too did most of the echiums. Now all I have to do is wait another year for them to flower!

Time to...

Divide herbaceous perennials that flower later in the summer. This is a very satisfying job as you increase your stock of plants and they cost you nothing.

All you have to do is select your plant – astilbies, asters and ligularia are good candidates. Dig them out and using a spade and fork rock the plant back and forth until it separates. Then divide and plant in the new positions and water well.

Mow your lawn. There’s no excuse as the ground has dried out. If you have a big garden you might just mow paths through the grass and plant the rest as a wild flower meadow.

This is not as easy as it sounds so you could just let the ordinary grass go back to nature and cut it after it sets seed in late summer.

Tidy up. The withered stems of last year’s flowers to make way for new growth.

Five for maturity and screening

Instant impact can be created by planting a mature tree so we asked Ian and Jo McGarry from Caragh Nurseries in Co Kildare to share their favourite five trees for maturity, screening and privacy.

Evergreen oak

The evergreen oak is always top of our list as it ticks every box. It is evergreen, gives good cover but is also easy to maintain and is relatively slow growing.

This evergreen screening tree is most commonly grown as a standard tree on a 1.8m clear trunk with a compact but full head. Unlike the deciduous oak its leaves are more akin to the holly in shape and structure.

This tree can grow large over time however, its slow growth habit ensures it can be easily managed with a trim every three to five years.

Olive tree

We love the olive tree and its grey-green foliage and loose tendrils. They are gentle yet equally as robust as any mature tree.

In the nursery we have trees that are over 50 years old and we have supplied 1,500 olive trees to a hotel – not only a piece of art but a slice of history too.

Scotch pine

We have been growing Scots pine at Caragh for almost 20 years, with its blue-grey needles and its wonderful sculptural shape (when mature) and the orangey bark, this is such an instantly recognisable trees.

As with virtually all conifers, it starts life as a pretty unremarkable cone-shaped tree but as it matures, it loses its lower branches and can form the most outstandingly beautiful and creative shapes.

The normal tree can take 40 years (at least) to reach 35ft when it takes on some of its most beautiful character. It is not only great for screening and wonderful mature, it is also one of the best trees for absorbing noise pollution.

Killarney Strawberry tree

The Killarney strawberry tree is native to southwest Ireland but is thought to have originally come from northern Spain or Portugal.

It has a lovely dome-shaped evergreen-ness in gardens especially near the coast where it does well in salt-laden breezes.

Like all strawberry trees, it needs good drainage. It is very slow growing but so worth the wait, with its strawberry-like fruits and its white bell-shaped flowers that cover the tree in early summer.

It’s naturally a multi-stemmed tree and will grow to around 20ft tall but that could take over 50 years.

Beech tree

The beech is often thought of as the mother of the forest as she casts a protective shade with her leaves. It is a rather magnificent tree and one we recommend for both maturity and screening.

Although it is deciduous, it retains its copper foliage of dead leaves so helps with screening even in the winter. So a win-win for those wanting to create a barrier and still have the beauty of the seasons.

An added bonus of deciduous trees like the beech is that they are lower in price than their evergreen counterparts.

All trees are available to plant all year round and can be supplied in mature and larger sizes to create instant impact in any size of garden. For more contact Ian or Jo at 045-879 170 or email them at info@caraghnurseries.ie