Start With a Slow Walk Round the Plot

Early spring is a strange, generous window in the British garden. The soil is beginning to warm, the light is stretching out, but nothing is in a rush yet. Before you reach for a tool, take twenty minutes to walk the beds and borders with a notebook in hand. This is the moment to spot the damage that winter has quietly done: lifted paving, snapped branches, a rose that has been rocking in the wind for weeks, bulbs pushing up through a mat of dead leaves.

Look at the ground itself, too. If the soil sticks to your boots in clods, it is still too wet to work and you will do more harm than good by walking on it. If it crumbles reasonably when you squeeze a handful, you can make a start. Clay soils need a little patience; light sandy soils will be ready earlier, particularly on a south-facing border.

Clear Winter Debris and Tidy the Ground

Begin by clearing the surface. Winter leaves a mess behind, and much of it is best removed before new growth starts pushing through it.

• Rake away fallen leaves, especially from around the crowns of herbaceous perennials, where they can smother new shoots and harbour slugs.
• Cut back the collapsed stems of perennials you left standing for the birds and for winter structure. Snap them off at about 5cm above the crown rather than tugging at the plant.
• Lift any slimy, blackened foliage or rotting plant material. Do not add diseased material to the compost bin.
• Pull out annual weeds now, while they are small and the soil is soft. A hoe on a dry, breezy morning will finish off seedling weeds in minutes.
• Empty saucers, pots and any hollow ornaments that have collected rainwater, so you are not breeding mosquitoes in a forgotten corner.

Leave a few seedheads in place if you can. Teasels, sedums and ornamental grasses still feed the goldfinches, and you can cut them later in the month when the birds move on.

Fork Over Compacted Soil Gently

Compaction is the quiet thief of spring growth. Paths, patios and the corners where you always stand to prune all end up with soil that is too tight for roots and water to move through.

Take a garden fork and work backwards across the bed, sinking the tines in and levering gently rather than turning the soil over. Space the forks about 20cm apart, working to the depth of the tines. You are opening the soil, not flipping it, and you are doing your best to leave the worm channels and fungal networks intact. Remove any large stones and any roots of perennial weeds such as bindweed, ground elder or couch grass — every fragment left behind will be a new plant by June.

If you garden on heavy clay, fork in a bucketful of grit or well-rotted manure per square metre at the same time. On raised beds, take the opportunity to top up the soil level, as beds settle over winter and the depth you gained last year has quietly vanished.

Feed the Soil With Compost and Mulch

Once the surface is open, spread a layer of well-rotted compost or leafmould about 5cm deep across the borders. Do not dig it in. Leave it on the surface and the worms will pull it down over the coming weeks, which is exactly what you want.

Keep the mulch a hand's width away from the stems of shrubs, roses and perennials, and leave a small gap around the crowns of plants that dislike sitting wet, such as lavender, thyme and bearded iris. Around acid-lovers like rhododendrons, camellias and blueberries, use leafmould or ericaceous compost rather than anything limy.

If you have a clay soil that has been waterlogged all winter, this is also the moment to add a little horticultural grit or sharp sand to the surface. It will not cure drainage on its own, but it helps the top few centimetres dry out and warm up more quickly.

Check Supports, Stakes and Structures

It is far easier to repair a support now than to wrestle with it once a plant has flopped over it. Walk round and test everything that is holding something up.

• Push stakes firmly into the ground and replace any that have rotted at soil level.
• Check tree ties and shrub ties. Loosen anything that is cutting in, and refasten so the stem can still move slightly in the wind.
• Inspect pergolas, arches, obelisks and trellis for loose fixings and split timber, and treat bare wood before growth hides it.
• Re-tension climbing frames and wires on walls, and make sure they sit 5cm or so away from the masonry so air can move behind the plants.
• Wash greenhouse glass and check vents open and close freely, so you are ready for the first warm afternoons.

Prune Damaged Branches Before Growth Begins

Winter storms leave tell-tale signs: bark stripped from a stem, a branch hanging at an odd angle, dieback running back from a broken tip. Deal with it now, while the plant is still dormant and you can see the shape of the branches clearly.

Cut back to a healthy bud or a strong side shoot, making a clean cut just above it, angled slightly away from the bud. Remove torn stubs and any dead, diseased or crossing wood, working from the outside of the shrub inwards. On larger branches, use the three-cut method to avoid tearing the bark: an undercut, a top cut further out, then a final clean cut back to the branch collar.

This is also the right time for the shrubs that flower on new wood — buddleia, cornus, hydrangea paniculata and summer-fruiting raspberries can all be cut back hard now. Leave spring-flowering shrubs such as forsythia, ribes and flowering currant alone until after they have flowered, or you will cut off this year's blooms.

Finishing Touches and the Weeks Ahead

With beds cleared, soil opened and compost laid on, the garden already looks different. Spend a final hour on the details: re-cut the lawn edges with a half-moon iron, firm in any plants lifted by frost, and label clumps of bulbs and perennials while you can still see where they are.

Sharpen your secateurs and hoe, oil the fork and spade, and check your seed packets for sowing dates. The next few weeks will bring warmer soil and faster growth, and a garden prepared in early spring rewards you all summer with less weeding, stronger plants and far fewer surprises.