“Don’t wear perfume in the garden —
unless you want to be pollinated by bees.”
Anne Rover
W ith the rising temps, our resident chipmunks — rats with racing stripes, as I call them — make their daily appearance. I watched one of them methodically filling his cheeks to the bursting point with sunflower seeds, retreating to his abode, only to come back a few minutes later for a repeat performance. Trusting little Alvin.
I am busy plucking spent petals from azaleas, which were so attractive a few weeks ago, and pulling out scores of spent forget-me-nots. I always find a spot to spread their seeds, rewarding me with an ethereal early spring bloom. The fading foliage of snowdrops tells me to relocate some bulb clusters to spread the wealth. After having harvested most of the asparagus a few weeks ago, I let the remaining stalk “fern out,” while applying crowd control to keep healthy perennials from invading spaces not assigned to them. As much as I love plants tumbling in profusion, there has to be some order.
The deer herd, making its daily tour, has met with significant disappointment this spring when they found out their salad bowl buffet had been fenced in. I am so happy to see that none of the rose bushes I planted last fall were touched.
If you were wondering about cold hardiness and heat zones, here is an easy explanation. Zone 1 has the lowest number of heat days and Zone 12 has the highest number. A plant listed as hardy in zones 4-9 means it will grow in all of those zones. Your garden may have a microclimate that’s not typical of the actual zone where you live, yet soil and light can be used to place plants where they have the best chance of growing. If you are a conservative gardener, you will choose plants that will grow well in your garden and depend on these plants year after year. If you are an adventurous (or daring) gardener who wants to push the limits, success and failure is part of the fun of gardening.
Compact shrubs require less time to maintain. You can include them in mass plantings to reduce lawn size and mowing. And best of all, they allow the homeowner to create more diversity and color in a smaller space.
A darling fragrant lilac, which blooms spring through fall, is the syringia “Bloomerang.” This is a surefire winner and easy to grow in any landscape. Four months of flowering will ensure the butterflies — and you — will enjoy it. And the shrub is drought tolerant with a spread of 4 by 4 feet, making it ideal for a smaller garden.
Afavored one of mine is weigela florida “Midnight Wine,” as easy to grow as is weigela florida “My Monet.” The “Oso Easy Rose” blooming profusely now in my garden is a sheer delight with hundreds of small orange roses. It is in a large planter and will not grow taller than 30 inches.
Assuming that you have successfully handled the cleanup of winter detritus, trimmed branches when and where required, made your plant list and skirted the temptation to buy every annual in your garden center, you now have to do double-time to keep up with the growing season.
What to do now:
Continue to plant warm-weather flowers, vegetables and herbs.
Water thoroughly and make sure they are well mulched to conserve moisture, stabilize soil temperature and reduce weeds.
Stake plants that require support (tomatoes, tall annuals, dahlias, peonies)
Pinch off spent flowers.
Directly sow seeds outdoors for any warm-weather plant.
Prune spring-flowering shrubs as soon as flowering is finished
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.