“If dandelions cost a guinea a root and had to be cosseted through the winter, they would find a place in every rich man’s greenhouse.”
— Wilfrid Blunt S pring is always a race against time, and you really have to use each sunny day to keep ahead of your to-do list. Spring is also for ordering seeds and planting them with a healthy wish, and a time to envision bees and hummingbirds visiting flowers in a choreographed air dance.
Honeybees have been disappearing in record numbers, and some butterfly and native bee populations have also significantly declined.
The question now is, “How can I attract bees and other pollinators to my garden?” We have to thank pollinators for beautiful flowers, juicy summer berries and bountiful vegetable gardens. Bees rely on blooming trees in spring, but early blooming flowering plants (dianthus, chives, clover, parsley, poppy, sweet alyssum, viola and more) provide additional resources. Blooming snowdrops in my garden were a magnet for honeybees as early as February.
Must-have tools for a beginning gardener, using people power:
Long-handled spade: To dig weeds, divide plants and work the soil;
Garden rake: I have several bowhead and flathead rakes, and use them routinely;
Long-handled hoe: A great tool to create shallow rows, breaking up the soil and loosening it before weeding;
Trowel: To dig a small hole for transplanting;
Bypass pruner: To handle woody growth, harvest veggies and deadhead flowering plants. A pruner with up to 1-inch cutting capacity should be sufficient for most pruning tasks in the garden;
Wheelbarrow: Where would I be without my orange, sturdy wheelbarrow for hauling soil, plants, tools and more?
Without question, asparagus is a connoisseur’s delight, particularly when eaten fresh from the garden.
A new cultivar is on the market: “Purple Passion,” its beautiful, deep burgundy-purple spears have a sweeter taste than old-fashioned asparagus. The plants are far more productive than heirloom varieties. Growing asparagus is very easy and so rewarding. To establish a patch requires a little patience, but the payoff is huge — asparagus every spring for the next 10, 20 or 30 years. Just 20 mature plants will yield more than enough for a family of four. Go for it.
Spring might also prompt you to plant a window box or two this year. Having seen these delightful creations at the Philadelphia Flower Show year after year, they definitely deserve your trial. You can plant them as you see fit, with annual flowers or perennials, adding different miniature ivy with interesting, fine textures and colors to play against your selection of flowers. What a pocketsized perfection.
What to do now:
• Prune roses when the buds begin to swell and when the forsythia blooms. Cut out older canes and any dead growth;
Feed roses;
Set out supports for peonies before shoots become too tall;
Significantly cut back buddleia (butterfly bush), caryopteris (blue mist shrub) and red twig dogwood. All bloom on new growth;
Make sure granular fertilizer does not come in contact with plant foliage, as it will burn;
Repot and fertilize your houseplants if you have not already done so;
Divide perennials that have exceeded their space (lily of the valley, daylilies and hosta);
It is not too late to add rich, organic compost to your beds and under your shrubs;
Acid-loving plants (hollies, camellias, rhododendrons, azaleas, magnolias and evergreen) will benefit from a fertilizer for acidloving plants.
A summer without gardening? Not until your hip needs replacing!
Gotti Kelley, a past president of the Navesink Garden Club, also serves on the board of the Garden Club of New Jersey and Central Atlantic Region of National Garden Clubs.