SOME THINGS TO DO IN THE GARDEN IN APRIL
	• Start the weekly process of hoeing alongside vegetable seedlings - whether any weeds are already growing or not. • Soak plants bought from a garden centre for about half an hour before draining and planting. • Begin to harden off, for outdoor planting, greenhouse raised seedlings of vegetables such as onions, leeks and lettuce. • Sow under cloches a row of broad beans for an early crop with the best chance of only slight damage from blackfly. • Watch for the renewed activity of slugs and snails and control them with one of the many remedies available.  Those based on alum are held to be environment-friendly. • Lift, divide and replant clumps of crocuses before the foliage dies away. • Prune out the oldest -  darkest - branches from forsythia bushes to control their size and keep them young. • Start to feed young greenhouse pot plants if they have been in their present compost for more than six weeks. • Make a sowing of parsley alongside a path.  Soaking the drill with hot water is said by old gardeners to overcome the germination problem. • Scarify the lawn with a wire toothed rake to dislodge the dead growth and clippings that can hamper aeration and even become centres of disease. • Plant onion setts, using the tip of the trowel and placing them just below the surface.  Do not push them into the ground. • Give roses their first feed of the season, using a specially compounded high-potash mixture. David Jones
	VINE WEEVIL Have you a pot plant that looks sad, not just run short of water?  Take the plant carefully out of the pot and look for signs of the vine weevil.  They are creamy white bugs with brown heads and live on the roots of a plant.  Dispose of soil and bugs and wash roots, if any left, and repot - the plant may recover. The adult weevils are black and slow moving feeding on leaves at night.  Go out with a torch and kill them.  Get advice from a garden centre for a preventative control. P.S. Plants in the garden can be attacked by the vine weevil as well as those in pots!