April gardening jobs

Discover some top gardening jobs for April including planting native shrubs, saving summer seeds and dividing perennials.

Plant native shrubs

Autumn is a great season to plant attractive native shrubs such as leptospermums, callistemons, correas, melaleucas, banksias and westringia. Planting these hardy species now gives them time to settle in over winter and establish their roots before the coming summer.

Save summer seeds

Now is the time to collect and scatter, or store for future sowing, the seeds of a range of late-summer and autumn bloomers. Varieties that grow easily from seed include single dahlias, rudbeckia, strawflowers (below), cosmos and sunflowers. Be on the lookout, too, for self-sown seedlings, which can be left in their self-selected spots or carefully transplanted into a position of your choosing.

Harvest season

Autumn is traditionally harvest season, and with good storage many autumn crops will keep well into winter. To store pumpkins, pick them when the skin has hardened and the stem has withered, leaving a small stub of stalk on the top. Sit the pumpkin in a sunny spot for a few weeks to allow the skin to harden further, then set aside in a dry location. To store mature apples, first pick out and make use of any damaged fruit, then move the rest somewhere cool and slightly moist – if you can spare the space, a refrigerator is the best place to keep apples. Remove leaves from beetroot and carrots before storing to help them keep for longer. Stash potatoes in a cool, dryish place where they’re protected from light.

Prune and divide perennials

Use secateurs or sharp scissors to trim tatty leaves and dead flower stems from now-finished summer-blooming perennials such as phlox (below), daisies and asters. Lift crowded clumps, wash off the soil, detach the vigorous younger outer sections and discard tired old centres. Move these root-bearing detached pieces to other parts of the garden, or pot them up for replanting in spring. Cold-climate perennials such as peony roses and lily-of-the-valley can also be lifted and divided at this time.