April, south of the equator

April is proper autumn. The days are pleasant, the nights are cooling, and inland the first frost may arrive before the month is out. Everything planted now has the cool season ahead of it, which in most of the south is the easiest growing weather of the year.

In the garden

Plant garlic, onion sets and shallots. Garlic in particular needs the cold months to split into cloves, and an autumn planting gives bulbs two or three times the size of a spring one. Sow broad beans, peas, spinach, lettuce, radish, turnips and leeks, and plant seedlings of broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower rather than sowing them this late.

Keep planting bulbs. Daffodils, hyacinths, freesias and the indigenous spring bulbs all go in through this month, and lily bulbs can go in as soon as they appear in the shops, because they dry out quickly on a shelf. Plant the winter and spring annuals as seedlings: calendula, pansies, violas, primulas, stocks and snapdragons.

Sow protea seed if you did not in March, and plant fynbos in the winter rainfall regions. Feed the lawn before growth slows, mulch the beds against the cold, and cut back the summer perennials once they have properly finished.

Frost, and why the date matters more than the month

The single most useful figure in a southern garden is your own first frost date, and it varies by weeks over very short distances. A Highveld garden may be frosted by late April while a suburb twenty minutes away, or a coastal garden in the same province, may never see one at all. Everything in this month’s list that mentions cold is really about that date rather than about April. Ask a neighbour who has gardened there for a few years, or a local nursery, and write the answer down.

In the house

Water noticeably less. The change from March to April is one of the sharper ones of the year because the days are shortening fast. Feel the compost every time rather than keeping to a day of the week.

Move everything to the brightest position you have. In a southern autumn the sun swings north and a windowsill that was too hot in January becomes the best place in the house.

Stop feeding anything that has stopped growing, and reduce the rest to monthly. Give succulents and cacti their last thorough soak of the season, because from May they want very little and wet compost in a cool room is what kills them.

What not to do yet

Do not repot. Do not prune the spring flowering shrubs, whose buds are already set. And do not put a tender plant outside in a warm week in the middle of the month, because the first frost inland often arrives without much warning.