The UK’s recent heatwave has ended (for now), meaning watering and mowing rules have gone back to normal for gardeners.

Still, a bowl of water left in your garden remains useful for animals like hedgehogs, and though this week is safer than last for trimming your grass, you might want to keep your cut shreds on the lawn.

And according to author and former garden manager for various Royal Horticultural Society and National Trust sites, Simon Akeroyd, apparently, we should be peeing in our watering cans too.

“Sorry if this horrifies you,” a recent Instagram Reel of his read, “But the key to successfully growing plants is natural fertiliser.”

Why pay for specially-made products, the gardener argued, when “you have free access to the best natural stuff out there” – pee?

Calling your very own liquid gold the “best plant food” out there, Akeroyd shared that wee is “high in the three main plant nutrients needed for healthy plant growth – nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

“It’s particularly high in nitrogen,” he continued.

Nitrogen is key to plant health as it provides the building blocks of their DNA (though too much isn’t great for them either – nitrogen created by sewage can throw off the ecosystems of waterways, leading to too much algae).

That may be why Akeroyd recommends diluting your free plant feed “at a rate of about ten parts water to one part wee.”

Once placed in a watering can, t can be used to treat plants “once a week,” he added.

The expert isn’t alone – a 2017 paper published in Environmental Science and Technology reads, “Human urine contains significant amounts of N (nitrogen) and P (phosphorus); therefore, it has been successfully used as fertiliser in different crops.”

“Humans have been collecting urine and using it for fertiliser for a long, long time, but then in the west that really stopped with the invention of [the] sewage system,” Dr Krista Wigginton, who researched the topic, told The Guardian.

“We are just trying now to figure out with this infrastructure system that we have, how do we pull back and think differently about what goes into this sewage system and capture some of those valuable products before [they] get mixed and diluted with everything else?”

Some people report that male human pee, and especially the first one of the day, can repel foxes by interrupting their scent markers.

“Once the fox’s scent has been masked, they will feel more vulnerable and leave your garden altogether. This is a free, effective, if not a bit strange way to get rid of foxes without killing them,” Shield Pest Control wrote.

As Black Foxes UK said, there’s no empirical evidence to prove this definitely works yet.

But hey – if you’re using it to feed your plants anyway, it might be a welcome side-effect.

When I texted my partner, “You won’t believe what I’ve just seen!” this morning, I think he figured I’d witnessed a crime.

Nope ― it’s just that my 7:45 return from the gym was bathed in real, blue-skied sunlight. That felt unthinkable even two weeks ago.

This sign of life sounds the first death knell for February, to which I say, good riddance. Spring is on its way; intrepid blossoms take their first floral gasps of above-0° air, and the garden begins to return to its verdant glory.

Of course, all this comes with a downside (or upside, depending on your perspective). Don your dormant gloves, gardeners ― we’re back to work!

Here are the tasks experts advise finishing in March:

Now’s the time to plant everything from summer-flowering bulbs to new roses to shrubs, climbers, and wildflower seeds.

You can also sow onions and shallots, alongside other hardy veg like cabbage, lettuce, early potatoes, broad beans, radish, and cauliflower.

For the most bountiful display in spring and summer, it’s important to prune roses and climbers early on in the month ― dogwoods and willows will benefit from a harsher cut-back now too.

We’ve written before about how tackling perennial weeds before summer hits is key, even if they don’t look like they’re doing much harm.

They’ve growing thick, hard-to-remove roots at the moment; lift them and their roots from the ground as soon as you can to save yourself a horticultural headache later.

Slugs and snails seem to wake up the second your prized veggies do (funny, that).

Try biological controls or alternatives to keep their numbers in check ahead of spring.

Tender new stems don’t stand much of a chance against swarms of spring aphids. Manually remove them before the problem goes out of control.

We were all excited when the first daffodils puffed their yellow chests up, but it’s important to deadhead those who have since wilted.

That’ll ensure an equally resplendent show next year, especially if you feed the bulbs with tomato feed.