Frances Tophill's guide to April pruning

April in the garden is a time of fresh beauty and feverish activity for us gardeners. Seeds are sown regularly, and once germinated, they are pricked out and potted on. Nights are often still cold though, and taking winter protection off your tender plants might be a little premature depending on the year’s weather. The colour is found in the bulbs – daffodils, early bluebells and tulips. The weeds (if you let them grow) will be in full flush with a delicious bounty of wild garlic and fresh nettle leaves.

Spring cleaning the garden is highly recommended if you haven’t yet cut back hardy perennials. Trimming back the winter colour is also a timely job – so that’s all the stems, berries and flowering plants that were at their best during winter. Flowering shrubs, such as forsythia, ribes and Cornus mas can be cut back once they have finished flowering, if pruning is required, to keep them in check. The flowers will have just finished, and an early cut means maximising this year’s growth so that next year’s flower buds can form. Borderline tender plants, such as melianthus, lavender, myrtle, and abutilon can be pruned later in the month when it’s warmer.

• Watch David Hurrion’s chop and trim in spring
• What to prune in spring
• How to prune a hydrangea in spring

Spring is a great time to get things back under control, thinning out tangled branches and cutting back sprawling limbs to make valuable room for the coming months of growth.

After flowering, camellias can be pruned. I think they look lovely if you clear the lower stems to raise the canopy.

A large tree will need very little pruning, but if you are growing paulownia for big leaves, it’s best to coppice