The lighter nights this week have been superb and a great time to get out, unwind after work and do preparations in the garden. The soil is now starting to warm up and April is the time in Scotland to get sowing your seeds, so there are lots of jobs to getting on with now:

• Tender vegetables such as tomatoes and sweet corn should be sown indoors in a greenhouse or windowsill.

• To ensure an autumn harvest if you are growing leeks from seed, now is the time to sow. You can sow these directly into a seedbed, or, to give them a better start, plant into modules and transplant once the plants are at seedling stage.

• If growing veg from seed in the garden, you can now plant all sorts of things such as beetroot, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, onions, parsnips, peas and beans and also turnips. Most of these varieties are also available from garden centres and nurseries as plug plants which you can continue to plant throughout the spring time – but if growing from seed, this should be done over the next few weeks.

PLANT OF THE WEEK: ERYSIMUM ‘BOWLES MAUVE’

This week’s plant is the fabulous perennial wallflower Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’. It always amazes me how hardy this tender-looking plant actually is and how well it performs year after year in Scottish gardens.

It is an upright shrub which produces masses of fragrant clusters of mauve flowers from March into the mid-summer months. It is attractive to butterflies, does well grown in a container or is an excellent garden plant. For best results, trim back in the autumn and remove flowers as they go past and this plant will just keep flowering on and on, giving great colour and scent for much of the season.

Colin Barrie, Caulders Garden Centres. Colin has been working in the gardening industry for over 30 years and owns 7 Garden Centres across central Scotland and is passionate about Scottish plants.