How to garden in spring (and the best tools for the job)

This week: easy ways to refresh your outdoor space; colourful pick-me-ups; and the best espresso machines, tested

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The Earth’s orbit of the sun is just long enough that, by the time spring rolls back around, we have all but forgotten the sumptuous reality of the season: how the extended sunlight fills our souls; how the growing green reinvigorates the spirit; how cherry blossom against a blue sky manifests something bigger than beauty alone.

As a gardener, I can wholeheartedly affirm that one of the best ways to enjoy spring is to actively engage with it. Spring is for doing: cutting back perennials; tying and training roses; pruning shrubs. Over the years, I have been leaving more and more of the garden tidy-up for spring, having once seen much of this off in autumn. Common horticultural practice now recognises the importance of leaving dead stems and seed heads standing over winter as shelter and forage for wildlife, so even my small garden requires a good deal of maintenance at this time of year. Plenty of material, then, to set 12 pairs of secateurs on.

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