The weather
is warming up, snow is melting and gardeners are itching to get out
in their yards. My caution: wait to clean out gardens and install
new plants until after the danger of frost has passed. In our region
of NH that is mid May,
not on the first day it hits 60. Resist the urge, even when you
start seeing other homeowners and landscapers out there, your plants
and beneficial insects will thank you.
(Find your hardiness zone, average last
frost date and other local climate information by typing your zip
code in on this site: http://www.plantmaps.com/)
It
takes the soil a while to warm up in the spring and new plants put in
cold ground just hunker down. You’ll do them a favor by waiting
until the soil warms to install them. The same waiting strategy is
needed before your spring clean up. If you clean out the winter
mulch and debris insulating your garden beds too early and we get a
late frost you’ll ‘burn’ the new growth on perennials just
starting to come up. They’ll survive but I’d rather they thrive.
Once the snow
melts occupy yourself by turning the compost pile, completing winter
tasks you put off like cleaning and repairing tools, planning and
preparing new beds for fall planting, and enjoying the crocus’,
daffodils, and lilacs as they bloom.
Speaking of
daffodils, you all know not to remove the foliage of spring blooming
bulbs until it dies back naturally, right? The leaves, as long as
they are green, are storing energy for next years bulbs, don’t cut
or mow them too early or you’ll be sacrificing future blooms.
"April
is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain." --T.S.
Eliot, "The Waste Land"
Happy Gardening,
Patty Laughlin, NHCLP, AOLCP
Owner/Head Gardener
Lorax Landscaping
Epping, NH
