THERE are plenty of jobs to be done in the garden. In our house, once April is here indoor tasks are neglected until rain forces me inside. This is such a lovely month in the garden with herbaceous perennials shooting up and trays of seedlings filling the airing cupboard and covering every window sill in the house.

It is a good time to buy and plant conifers and evergreens, summer-flowering bulbs and dahlia tubers.

Dahlias can be put straight into the garden or planted in large pots and grown in a sheltered place by the house wall, in a greenhouse or on a cool windowsill. This is especially useful if the garden is in a cold spot and prone to late frosts or if wet weather has made the soil claggy.

If you forgot to sow some seeds, young tender perennial plants can be bought, potted into individual containers and grown on. Remember they need to be kept in fairly warm conditions so don't buy too many if space is a problem. They can be hardened off in a few weeks and planted out at the end of May and beginning of June depending on the weather.

Start planting up baskets and containers for the summer but again, keep them in a bright frost-free place if tender annuals and bedding plants are being used. Mix a slow release container feed with the compost to keep the plants well fed - the current Gardening Which? Best Buy is Miracle-Gro Controlled Release Plant Food, £3.49/500g, £4.99/1kg and £9.49/2kg.

Out in the garden watch out for slugs and snails damaging the new shoots of delphiniums, hosta and seedlings. We don't seem to have had too much of a problem so far this year but the weather has been so dry, I am sure once the rain comes it will bring a plague of these pests.

WEEKEND CATCHUP

CHECK tree ties and loosen any that are cutting into the bark. Replace them with longer ones if they have got too small.

Updated: 08:56 Saturday, April 20, 2002