Spring gardens: clever tips to transform your neglected outdoor space

That extra daylight hour does it. Somehow it seems to unveil a garden or patio for the first time since last year.

Then, if you are a lazy London gardener who has not lifted a finger outside for months, the panic sets in.

Before you head out to the garden centre, Covent Garden flower market — the best — or Columbia Road Flower Market and load up with purchases, just get your space in order.

Weeds wake up, too. So for a quick and very satisfying method of dealing with them, buy a Weed Burner (toolstation.com; £20.95) which incinerates them and almost becomes an addiction… guilty as charged.

Most weeds can be dealt with by hoeing little and often, but docks, ground elder and brambles may be best despatched with a targeted weedkiller. Roundup Gel works well and won’t damage the plants you want to keep.

For weeds in lawns, try the Wonder Weed Puller (burgonandball.com; £19.99) finalist for this year’s Chelsea Flower Show product of the year. It ejects weeds straight into the compost bin in a rather natty way.

Get out your secateurs and cut down the brown stems of perennial plants to let the new green shoots through, and tie in any errant shoots of climbing and rambling roses.

The soil needs a boost right now, so if you have any garden compost, it’s time to spread it around your plants. Wood chips will help by keeping weeds down.

Treat mouldy paving to a dose of Patio Black Spot Removal (patioblackspotremoval.com), which promises to remove mould with just one application. Four litres covers 20 sq metres and costs £69.60.

Visits to the garden centre should be little and often. Rachel Patey from Capital Gardens (capitalgardens.co.uk), which owns Neals Nurseries in Wandsworth and Alexandra Nurseries in Penge, says: “Shopping is meant to be enjoyable. Wander round, see what is in season and buy a few nice things. That way you will end up with a garden that flowers all through the year.”

Buy spring bulbs in bloom for instant colourful pots. But get blockbuster summer bulbs such as crocosmia, alliums and agapanthus dry and in bags — they’re a world cheaper than later in the season when they are planted up.

Crocosmia bulbs are an easy, cheap way to add loads of colour, with their rich red or orange flowers and sword-like leaves filling an area fast. For windy London balconies and roofs, go for agapanthus African Surf.

It’s veggie planting time. Get in potatoes and sow salads, herbs, beans, beetroot and carrots in garden soil or pots outside.

If you want pots or borders crammed with romantic flowering colour this summer, this is the perfect time to start annual flowers off from seed. Container growers, remember, there’s no need to throw away all the compost in pots. Just take off the top 5cm and replace it with fresh stuff.

BUCKETS OF FUN FROM SEEDS

For gardeners who have only tiny spaces, such as balconies and terraces, Benjamin Ranyard, who runs his small seed company Higgledy Garden from a barge on the Oxford Canal, grows a riot of annual flowers in builders buckets on the roof of the boat, started off from seed in 9cm pots in a clear plastic storage crate, which makes a decent cold frame.

His Casper Collection of Flowers for Boats and Balconies includes 10 seed packets of different flowers, from rudbeckia to cornflower, cosmos to calendula and will, for £15.80, fill pots with colour all summer long, as long as they get plenty of sun.

Treat it as your own mini cutting flower garden and fill your home with free flowers. Ranyard says: "If you cut above a leaf node, the flowers will keep coming."