A guide to spring gardening Start with a clearance. It is easy to let shrubs and trees get too big without realising it, especially as we tend to plant densely for instant effect. Opening up overgrown spaces gives you new gardening opportunities. Having started with no shade and shelter in my garden almost 30 years ago, I now have too much. My hazels planted 15 years ago quickly gave impact but, desperate to create new planting spaces, I have reduced these by half. Now I have new space to play with. Underneath the ground was covered with ivy - easy but not too inspiring. Most I have ripped out leaving a low, bushy, hedge around the edge. It will probably be shaped with shears a couple of times a year. New, unwanted ivy shoots will sneak back, but with vigilance (bursts of glyphosate and hand pulling), it will succumb. The hazel, coppiced to stumps about 25cm high, will also shoot back, and I will glyphosate these too. Perceived wisdom always tells you to pull out stumps and as many roots as possible. Too much work and effort. Low dead stumps in my new "woodland glade" type planting will be fine. I have heaped soil around the stumps and moved some viola plants and ferns to nestle there too. It is said rotting stumps harbour disease, but they also say dead wood supports about 75 per cent of the wildlife in a woodland, rich pickings for beetles, fungi, insects and birds. Honey fungus is everywhere anyway, weak plants in every garden are susceptible and leaving the odd rotting stump or 10 won't make much difference. With any new planting decide on the feel you want. Contemporary, traditional, cottage or natural are some options. Choose suitable plants that radiate that look. In my open, woodland glade, I am planting lots of blues and whites: Anchusa, Sanguisorbas and Campanulas, as well as woodland type grasses - libertia and liriope with a few Rosa 'Windflower. I will thread through the shorter-lived perennials and biennials such as foxgloves, sweet rocket and annual larkspur. When you plant a hedge you are keen for it to come of age, when it has, it gives you scope to do something special with it. Windows, archways, piers - all manner of things can be achieved to add huge impact. My yew hedges had got too difficult to cut and were limiting views. Nine lengths of hedging (arranged in three parallel lines) with tight gaps between just let small glimpses through. The gaps have been opened up by cutting generous swooping curves on each end. A more interesting shape and more enticing views. Where the plants have been reduced by a metre or more in height, the "dead" wood inside is highly visible. Most hedges will grow back quite fast, especially younger and well fed ones. The conifers generally do not, the notable exception being yew - which is what makes it a supreme hedging plant. I think by next September they will have all greened up. I am frequently asked about inexpensive paving. Indian sandstones are becoming increasingly popular. They start at about £13 per square meter (indistone.com). For a more traditional look ask for "tumbled" Indian slabs (as opposed to sawn) and mix two similar colours to give a bit of variation. They quickly weather quite convincingly and can be mistaken for York. Laying in staggered, parallel courses helps. Indian sandstone is less water absorbent than York, so is less prone to algae. If your budget is very tight, gravel with surrounds of slabs or incorporating patterns of slabs can be a good option. You can stabilise the gravel by laying it with Cedagravel (ced.ltd.uk, from £12 per sqm) which are polypropylene hexagons (invisible when filed with gravel). They prevent the gravel from moving and so you can walk on it with expensive, slim heels without sinking. You can also lay it on slopes. My paving has gone quite dark, and looks too weathered in places. I apply Jeyes Fluid to it, still one of the best products for brightening paving. On moss growing on hard surfaces, Jeyes Fluid does turn it brown almost immediately. Unlike the pre-2003 formula, the new Jeyes does not stop it growing back. I loathe gaps in borders and love propagating. Now is the best time to take basal cuttings of many herbaceous plants. Many gardeners divide herbaceous plants. Though easy, this requires lots of stock in order to get generous clumps. Try taking basal cuttings to bulk up numbers as new shoots emerge Do not leave too late, if a plant has reached full growth you won't find good cutting material: 1) Take cutting with a sharp knife, as low as you can, ideally with a small bit of woodier material at base. 2) Remove the lower leaves. 3) Put into a plug or seed tray with 50 per cent compost and 50 per cent grit or vermiculite in shade in a cold frame. Plants such as Delphiniums that have hollow stems later, are ideal now as the stems are still solid. Phlox, Nepeta, Artemesia, Stachys, Asters, globe artichokes and many more can be struck now. By June you can have hundreds of rooted young plants. Many of my cuttings taken in autumn/late summer of tender Salvias and Argyranthemums are still in their plugs/trays and are growing well. If low on numbers of any types I take more cuttings from the cuttings. Last year I renewed my acquaintance with Salvia confertiflora, with its orange-red spikes of a metre or more, and my three plants will be chopped up to make a myriad more to give me late summer colour. These look striking next to the bold Kniphofia northiae, a splendid exotic-looking plant with 2m long leaves and whitish yellow fat flowers (from Pan Global Plants). I have to keep these cuttings under cover till after the threat of frost - mid-May - so I tend to keep them in plugs to save greenhouse room. I keep pinching them out and give them a dilute liquid feed to help sustain them. Hardening off is all important, and I like to keep them growing slower and harder by opening the greenhouse door on all but the coldest days. Soft, dynamic planting punctuated by strong structure is one of my favourite types of planting. Neither traditional nor modern, but stunning. Inspired by my mother, who grows lots of topiary commercially, I am clipping up a lot more of my own. Taxus (yew) is my favourite. Last summer I bought four bushy plants about a metre high, and planted them in a huge, baseless terracotta pot. They hate containerisation for any time and I hate having to give regular food and water, so it's a good solution. I clipped them hard back to the trunk in June, leaving each stem punctuated with three vertical balls. By the end of the summer and a bit more pinching out, I had some pretty shapely forms. I do buy plants, usually when I am visiting a great garden with its own mini nursery, where you are inspired to try new varieties and combinations. The Sussex Prairies, Woollerton Old Hall and Coton Manor are three gardens tended by passionate and knowledgeable plants people with strong and different ideas on using and grouping plants. Try to avoid buying one of each type - rarely do you see singletons that look anything special. Limit your palette or pop them into a hoarding boarder at home and bulk them up yourself. I have just planted more specimen yews. My soil is thin, holes are carved out (packed stone) with a pick axe. After several wheelbarrow loads of stones out and double the quantity of green waste in, I settled the plants in position having dunked them in a deep barrel of water until all air bubbles have left the compost. I face the plant, i.e. turn it till it shows its best side in the most prominent direction, when in its hole. Always remove the top inch or so of compost from the top of a pot first, there are invariably weeds/seeds there. Put in local authority compost bins unless you have an unusually efficient compost heap. Having watered plants in, I usually apply a mulch and often (especially in the case of a climber or shrub) give them a light prune. This invariably spurs the plants on. With my new yews, I gave them a tight hair cut, to start off some great, new shapes. I have just planted quite a few more lily of the valley. These plants technically like semi-shade, alkaline soil and will tolerate dryness once established. They are notoriously difficult to get going. Ideally buy them growing in a pot, or pot them up and grow them in a pot first for 12 months before planting out. My late friend John Cushnie used to recommend putting a slab over them for 12 months after planting if you plant dry bulbs. Most springs we get a hot, dry snap and I watch over all newcomers and water at least once a week with a good long soak. I want them to be independent as soon as possible, so will endeavour to space out their "drinking regime" to encourage their roots to branch out and down. I can never remember the correct spacings for all the different veg, but have just tried the Burgon & Ball Seed and Plant Spacing Rule, which has measured holes and distances along its length to enable you to poke their "dibblet" through to mark the hole - a great idea. Do experiment with spacing of vegetables, though. Commercially they grow far closer than that recommended for amateurs. Closer spacing gives a higher overall yield generally, but smaller yield per plant. For plants such as garlic, I relish big bulbs so I tend to plant farther apart than recommended. Asparagus really responds to more space too. In raised beds, though, with lovely deep, rich soil, I go far closer than stated in books. In a dry year, I may have to water if I have gone close but we never know what we will get, so hedge your bets and experiment. Reader offer: Burgon & Ball are delighted to offer Telegraph readers the following:A Seed and Plant Spacing Rule (£18.95). Takes the guess work out of seed spacing. Amazingly handy rule with seed-sowing holes, metric and imperial graduations, plus printed vegetable spacing guide. Precision machined from FSC beechwood. Overall length 1m. PLUS a FREE Dibblet (worth £5.95) Ideal for planting seeds and small seedlings with great accuracy. Hand turned FSC beech wood with 1cm graduations. Overall length 18cm. P&P would normally be £4.95, but Burgon & Ball are offering a reduced rate of £3.95.Telephone number is 0114 233 8262 (open Monday-Friday 9am-5pm); enquiries@burgonandball.com.