Agnes Stevenson: With Ronaldo up front, my line-up of gorgeous plants is really quite striking

The tulips have opened and the garden has taken on the sweet-shop shades of pink, coral, yellow and plum.

My favourite tulip this year is Ronaldo, a deep carmine red that I’m growing alongside Orange Cassini, but also dotted around the garden are pots of the white tulip Purissima.

While the weather’s been dry and sunny I’ve been watering the pots regularly and also adding the occasional liquid feed so the bulbs can start to replenish their energy.

In fact everything growing in containers has been getting some extra attention.

A lot of these are perennials that have been waiting to go into various parts of the garden that aren’t yet ready for them, so I’ve been tipping them out, sawing and prising their roots apart, then replanting these smaller sections with fresh compost.

You can do the same with perennials growing in the ground too and although it may seem a brutal way to treat plants, they will quickly recover and you’ll end up with lots more than you started with.

It is one of the easiest, and cheapest ways of gaining new plants and if you end up with more than you need, you can simply pot up the remainder and swap them with friends and family.

This week I’ve been splitting veronicas, sanguisorbas, geums, hostas, astrantias and lots more and now I’ve got lots of plants ready and waiting to move to their new homes.

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Last week, the candelabra primulas, which started off as just a handful of plants and have been split up until there are dozens of them, were planted into the damp area at the bottom of the slope and they are settling in nicely. The decorative wire cages that I’ve been using to protect the fritillaries from pheasants have done their trick and I’m hopeful that the flowers will survive long enough to set seed.

While the weather’s been glorious, even weeding has been a pleasure, and I’ve been clearing parts of the garden that had become neglected and filling in gaps in shadier areas with some of the dozens of small hellebores that have been waiting in the wings.

I’ve had hellebores in flower since Christmas and even when they finally fade, they’ll leave handsome foliage that will look good until the end of the year.

Next on my list of areas to be tackled is the stretch of grass and trees that separates our garden from our neighbours’ and here I’m planning on growing mahonia, holly, forsythia, weigela, rhododendron and a mixture of other shrubs that will give scent and foliage in winter and blossom in spring.

The plants have been set out where they are to grow and now it’s a matter of digging through the roots of the trees to create planting pockets.

Once they are in the ground, each will be encircled with chicken wire to keep them safe from foraging deer while the foliage is still young and fresh.