HE cheerful sight of daffodils is a sure sign Spring is actually here — even though it doesn’t feel like it.

From the first flowering cultivars like Tete e Tete and Jetfire, to the old varieties such as Dutch Master and King Alfred, which are flowering now.

Once the flowers have faded, make sure you deadhead them; otherwise they will go to seed. This loses the vigour of the bulb. Don’t do what some people do and tie the leaves in knots.

Although this might make them look tidy in your garden, it actually harms the bulb by restricting the water and nutrients moving along the tissues of the stems.

Instead, let them die down naturally, but before they do, give them a good feed with Growmore and a high potash fertiliser for around five to six weeks, to build the bulb up again for the following year.

Sometimes you might find your daffodils go “blind”, which means they fail to flower and there are several reasons for this.

When the bulb was planted, it may not have been planted deep enough. As a general rule of thumb, a bulb needs to be planted to a depth of two-and-a-half times the size of the bulb itself.

If the bulb dries out in the summer, this will cause the flower to dry out in the middle of the bulb. Another common cause of flower blindness is overcrowding. The bulbs are competing for nutrients and so cannot get enough food to form flowers.

Simply dig them up and divide them while the stems are still green and replant somewhere else in your garden.

Returning to the subject of lawns, the past few weeks has seen grass starting to grow, later than normal, but perfect for repair work to start.

If moss is present, the easiest and cheapest remedy is a single application of lawn sand (ferrous sulphate).

Even if you have already scarified the lawn, (use a fine rake to collect the moss), it will help to stop re-growth as well as greening up the grass.

Allow a couple of weeks and the moss should have turned black and can be collected.

Do not put on your compost heap. The wet weather and low light values in this area are ideal for moss development, but shade and compacted surfaces also aid its growth.

Allowing air into the surface will improve surface drainage by using a garden fork, or ideally, a hollow tine fork.

After this spiking, a natural combination of loam and sand should be applied; Levingtons Lawn Soil is an ideal ready made mix, which will fill the holes you have made.

You will now probably have bald patches and these should be re-seeded. Make sure the lawn sand treatment has lost its effect, usually two to three weeks depending on rainfall and the re-seed.

An easy way of re-seeding is to use a repair mix like Miracle-Gro Patch Magic.

Wait until the new seed has germinated and has established itself before applying any general lawn fertilisers.