Spring Garden Time
Kym has been sharing Tales from the Garden regularly and I’m jumping on that bandwagon to share a few thoughts along those lines. I’m not an expert like she is and my gardens are teeny by comparison but I do spend a fair amount of time tending my plants and my garden brings me a lot of joy.
My first tip is to look at your garden right now and decide where you might like to see some spring bulbs. And then place your order. Right away.
I am loaded with daffodils and I love them so so much! But as much as I love all of that yellow, I need to add some variety. I’m thinking some pink and white daffodils but I’m also thinking it might be nice to add some hyacinths, too. And if I don’t make note of this now . . . I will forget. Or I will decide that it looked fine and I don’t need to add more variety or color. And then next spring will roll around and I’ll wish I’d planted bulbs in the fall. But that won’t happen this time because I will have assessed and ordered and my bulbs will come in the fall and (despite the fact that I get very lazy about gardening in the fall) I will feel compelled to plant them since I spent the money.
Another tip is to gather your tools now and make sure you have what you need and that what you have is in good working order. Kym shared her favorite tools the other day and I am going to ask for the Felco pruners for Mother’s Day. I also really like 5 gallon buckets for weeds and I use tomato cages for my dahlias. I need to stock up on water storing crystals and potting soil, too. And a new pair of gloves is always a lovely beginning of gardening season treat.
Finally, make sure you have cut back any perennials that you didn’t deal with last fall. My lawn guy did a lot of this for me, including grasses and other shrubs, but I like to do the hydrangeas and roses and small flowering shrubs myself. It’s a good opportunity to get out there and assess things, to look for stuff that’s coming up, and to think about what I want to add this season. My front bed is mostly established and needs very little in the way of new plants but the shady side of my house definitely needs some attention and I suspect that will be in the form of more hellebores.
And that’s my low effort and very amateur gardening advice for spring. I look forward to hearing about what you do in your garden this season.
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Sounds like Kym has taught you well! Your next spring self will be so grateful for the extra color in the garden ?
I always look forward to pruning my hydrangeas. They’re the kind that bloom on old wood, so I have to wait for them to bud before I start cutting. I just checked them yesterday and I should probably wait another week but they’re the plant I look forward to the most in springtime.
Thanks for the hint on ordering bulbs now… I always forget and it will be nice to know that the bulbs will show up in time for me to plant!
I would take pictures of those daffodil beds now. You might want to reference the come planting time.
I have never heard of pink daffodils and had to look them up! I just did a bit of a garden clean-up this past weekend, and that included trimming my hydrangeas and Russian sage. My husband told me the landscapers would do it if we asked them, but they don’t seem to know the difference between a weed and a flower (they’ve pulled my sunflowers in the past), so I’d rather do it myself and let them just cut the grass. I think this may be the year I finally order and plant some bulbs. Do you have a trusted source you’d be willing to share?
(Please talk to me about water storing crystals before using them!!! These are really not recommended by garden experts.) One thing about deciding NOW about where to plant your bulbs in the fall . . . is that the garden looks like an entirely different PLACE in the fall than it does now. In fact, I think that’s one of the reasons so many of us “get lazy” about planting spring bulbs in the fall — because it doesn’t LOOK like there’s any room for them, y’know? One tip I hear about (and have tried — but you have to be quick about it in the spring) is to mark where you want to put more bulbs with golf tees. Just stick them in the ground where you want to plant in the fall. Because it’s hard to remember come October! XO