Spring is here and any gardener worth the title should be considering what to do to rehabilitate the garden, after what was a biting winter in most parts of the country. LESEGO KGOMANYANE explores the possibilities of a colourful season

Planning for an early spring garden can be a great way to beat back some of the winter doldrums and create some excitement about the season that lies ahead.
One must be selective on what plants they decide to include in their garden and give consideration to the time of the year. The best thing about living in a warm climate means you can grow just about anything and better still one can grow lots of things all year round.
As we surge into spring leaving behind us the outcomes of a conspiracy of conditions associated with winter, those with penchant for gardening look forward to enjoying the smell of the soil.
It does not take any special traits to garden. Even you can successfully grow a tomato plant or rosemary herb. If you do not have the patience to wait for seedlings to sprout, a trip to a local nursery could be the way to go. But in doing so you may need to know which plants perform best when, and the colour schemes of the different plants so that your choice of what to buy is an educated one.
The nursery offers an abundance of flowers that can add beauty and color to the sides of the house, along a fence or any dark corner of one’s landscape. The price range normally depends on whether the plant is a flower, shrub or a tree. Depending on what you want you can pay from as little as P18 to as high as a couple of hundred BWP. Tirelo Monnathebe, an employee of Sanitas Nurseries and Garden Centre, picks spring perennials such as Cape honey-suckle, lavender, Christmas tree roses and hibiscus.
Hibiscus is normally found in bright and cheerful colors such as golden yellow, orange or pink. Monnathebe discloses that this plant loves sunlight but can also do well in a temperate climate and flowers all year round.
If one needs to find a perfect plant to turn an area of their garden into a calming oasis filled with color, orange jasmine is best suited. They flower in spring and summer and can act as a shade tree with their dark green glossy leaves with white flowers.  Unlike jasmine, lavender and blue rosemary produce a nice smell and they both flower most of the year. Lavender produces violet blue flowers while rosemary comes in blue or pink. “They both produce tiny flowers which can be used as food flavors.
They are ideal through out the season but appear so beautifully during spring and summer making it easier for gardener to add natural beauty to any landscape” Monnathebe says. If you are more into colour there is a wide range of annuals to choose from. Petunias are probably the most common locally in their various flower types and colours.  This soft plant is good for spring but cannot tolerate too much heat. With more than 35 species of petunia both perennial and annual, there is a wide range of colours to pick from.
Other beautiful additions to a garden whose mood has been dampened by the frost that hit many local gardens include the colourful, gazania. This is one tough plant. Gazania can grow in the most inhospitable of conditions. It makes a very good edging plant.
The other addition to consider this spring could be a lobelia. With its long, dark-green leaves and bright flowers, lobelia tends to stand out among other plants. It can be planted among shrubs to give colour. The list of valuable plants is far more than exhaustive.