Spring usually goes from: “It’s never, never, never going to
arrive” to “I’m weeks behind schedule” in 17 nano seconds or less. Gardeners
are body-slammed from the tedium of winter house arrest into a frantic, aching
rush tackling endless chores.
But don’t panic. We are here to help with suggestions based on our experience of tasks that are best done sooner than later. One of the first things you should decide is what to-dos can wait for later in the season. Pick your battles wisely. For instance, if it’s too wet, cold or the schedule too packed, skip some of those early vegetables and plant them in late summer for fall harvest. Here are other ideas.
Michael’s suggestions
Take photos of borders and beds to
see what areas need filling when bulb planting time arrives. Memories fade
almost as quickly as the snowdrops and hyacinths.
Apply weed preventer to reduce
tedious work in pavements, beds and borders. Organic and nonorganic products
are available, but nothing is 100 percent effective. Unless arctic
conditions are expected to persist for weeks, I start in late winter with
the brick patio and walk. These face south and warm quickly. The gravel drive
is next and then beds and borders. Following label instructions, apply just
before rain and save watering the products in. Record-setting precip last year
— much in the form of gulley-washing downpours — mean more frequent treatment.
(Caveat – preventers don’t distinguish between desired self-sown flowers and
weed seeds.)
Drop everything and schedule an
escape to a nearby state park, botanic garden or stretch of lovely country
driving. Spend a few hours or better a day savoring the joy of spring
fever. What a waste of time, you’re probably thinking. If poet William
Wordsworth had spent that fateful spring day planting potatoes and cabbages
instead of “wandering lonely as a cloud” among the “host of golden daffodils,
all he would have had was a crossed-off to-do list. Instead, we have his
timeless ode to spring and some of it glorious flowers. Your spirit needs
lifted just as much as his. Hit the road.
Debra’s suggestions:
Now is the time to weed. Spring
rains soften the soil which allows annual and perennial weeds to be removed;
roots and all. Weeding can be a morning meditative practice. It is also an
opportunity to roam your gardens with a cup of tea in one hand and a weed
bucket in the other. Just make sure the weeds go into the bucket and not your
tea.
Start your seeds for melons, squash,
kohlrabi, and cabbages inside. Direct seed into the garden crops that like
cooler soils: peas, lettuces, mesclun mixes, tatsoi, mizuna, kale, collards,
dill, and cilantro. Transplant the tomato and chili seedlings that you started
in early March into larger pots.
Visit the garden center to shop for cold-loving
herbaceous plants like pansies and violas, primroses, and snapdragons.
These spring beauties add early color to borders and containers. Even try
mixing them with edibles like lettuce and kale for your spring
containers. Cuttings of willow and yellow-twig dogwood add further
interest.
Watch for the early ground bees.
Their small burrows are easy to step on and crush
Sit for a moment or three and marvel
at the life that is emerging from the ground. And remember to breathe…
Teresa’s suggestions
Rework tired beds. On a cool overcast day, dig everything from the bed and place the plants on a tarp in the shade. Divide overgrown plants, toss unhealthy ones, move some to other beds or give others away. Work compost into the bed then replant the existing plants and add others as needed.
Edge beds while the ground is soft. A clean edge adds definition to borders and helps control weeds. See Michael’s post on edging.
Prune dead, damaged and diseased branches from shrubs. After spring-flowering shrubs bloom, they can be pruned for size and shape. Also, remove suckers from crabapples and the base of trees like magnolias.
Remove invasive plants from natural areas, perhaps a wooded area at the back of your property. Look for bush honeysuckle, garlic mustard, multi-flora rose, lesser celandine and autumn olive – all aggressive plants that crowd out other valuable plants and wildflowers. For tips, see http://ohiodnr.gov/invasiveplants or join an invasive plant volunteer work day at a local park.
With this week’s launch of Joanna Gaines’ book “We Are the Gardeners,” I’m reminded of the joys of reading garden-themed picture books. Their beautiful illustrations and engaging stories appeal to kids of all ages – including big kids like me. As a bonus, these books often weave in valuable life lessons like patience and environmental stewardship as well as more practical ones like seed planting and tending soil. Here are 14 favorites (including three additions from Deb) to enjoy with your own children and grandchildren. They also make great gifts.
Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert
Author and illustrator Lois Ehlert of Milwaukee, WI, draws in readers with her colorful paper collage illustrations. Her rainbow of flowers entices readers to plant their own colorful cutting garden. Other favorites by Ehlert include Leaf Man, Growing Vegetable Soup, Eating the Alphabet, Waiting for Wings and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (illustrated by Ehlert and written by Bill Martin Jr.).
The Tiny Seed by Eric Carl
While many are familiar with Eric Carl’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar about a caterpillar’s journey and transformation to a butterfly, his lesser known The Tiny Seed illustrates another life cycle – one of a flower through the adventures of a tiny seed.
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
Shel Silverstein teaches the
value of giving from the perspective of a tree that gives and gives sacrificially
to a young boy throughout his life.
Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes
Chrysanthemum, the mouse heroine of this story, loved her name until she started school and her classmates teased her about being named after a flower. She eventually meets her music teacher Mrs. Delphinium Twinkle and suddenly blossoms.
The Secret Garden
An unlikely trio of children — an orphan girl, a nature-loving local boy and a spoiled boy in a wheelchair — make friends in a Yorkshire mansion’s abandoned garden where their friendship grows as they transform the garden.
The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear – by Don and Audrey Wood
I’m always growing or harvesting local strawberries and even worked a summer on a strawberry farm, so I fell in love with Little Mouse who does all he can to save his strawberry from the Big, Hungry Bear, even if it means sharing it with the reader. Other berry-loving books include Jamberry by Bruce Degen and Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey.
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
Based on a true story, Alice
Rumphius or the “Lupine Lady,” strives to make the world a more beautiful place
by scattering lupine seeds everywhere she goes along the coast of Maine.
Curious Gardner by Peter Brown
I’m moved by this young boy Liam’s quest for a greener world, one
garden at a time. While out exploring one day, he discovers a struggling garden
and decides to care for it. As time passes, the garden spreads throughout the
dark, gray city, transforming it into a lush, green world.
Jack’s Garden by Henry Cole
Come to the garden
that Jack planted. With each new page, readers are introduced to more and more garden
treasures — seeds and seedlings, buds and leaves, and eventually flowers and
the birds, bugs and butterflies they attract.
Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt by Kate Messner
Messner shares the hidden world beneath the garden and its soil
teaming with insects, water, nutrients and plant roots. Readers will gain a new
appreciation of soil’s valuable role in the garden throughout the seasons.
The Carrot Seed by Ruth
Krauss
This delightful story shares the hope of a young boy. When he plants a carrot seed, everyone tells him it won’t grow. But he faithfully waters his seed, pulls the weeds, and waits… until a carrot plant triumphantly emerges.
Linnea in Monet’s Garden by Christina Bjork
This is a delightful introduction to Monet, Impressionism
and Giverny for pre-teens and older. For younger children use it more like a
picture book and skip most of the text. An older book, it can be found at used
book stores and in the library.
There’s a Hair in My Dirt by Gary Larson
When your teenager says that he or she doesn’t read kid’s
books, hand over this dark, comedic tale of nature and the assumptions we make
about how it all works. A tale of caution is told by Father Worm to little worm
and the tale’s ending has a twist. This book should be required reading for
every biology student. Warning: this is Gary Larson and there are one or
two off-color words in the captions.
Tales of Peter Rabbit and His Friends by Beatrix Potter
Beatrix Potter’s beloved stories are packaged many
ways. You can find anthologies and sets of small books – great for
little hands – of the individual stories. Whichever form you choose, be sure to
check that they are illustrated by Beatrix Potter. Her charming animal figures
beautifully accompany her short, sweet vignettes that relate the lessons of
life. These are stories that stay with you for your whole life.
Buds are nature’s promise that spring is coming — eventually. Pussy willow catkins and plump star magnolia buds practically shout spring long before they bloom.
Butif you’re like me, waiting for spring seems interminable. Instead of mopingabout gloomy winter, take matters into your own hands and create a glimpse ofearly spring in the comfort of home. Sometimes I have forsythia andold-fashioned flowering quince from the garden to grace my table well beforethe Super Bowl.
Flowering quince blossoms emerge pink or white.
How?A big greenhouse? Magic? Nope. I “force” the buds into opening. Besides the liftsuch eye candy provides, snipping a few branches is an excuse to get into thegarden and do something.
Forcing is a simple process. For quickest results, let nature do some of the work. The later in winter you make cuts, the shorter the wait. I’m so impatient, the first cuts come just after New Year’s Day, preferably when temperatures are in the 40s or better 50s. This gets the juices going a bit. Depending what part of the Midwest you call home and local weather conditions, you may already have the earliest of flowering shrubs blooming their heads off. In that case, experiment with some of those that open later in spring.
Pussy willow symbolizes spring’s return.
Bringthe stems indoors, dip the cut ends into powdered alum to enhance water uptake,place them in a suitably sized container, and fill it with water. I leave mycuttings in the cool, dimly lit cellar for a couple of weeks until buds swelland hints of color appear. (I’ve also had success simply putting the cut stemsin a coolish bedroom.) This transition reduces chances of buds blasting intoshabby blobs, not blooms.
Lovely but short-lived star magnolia
Thenit’s off to the living quarters for the grand opening. Blossoms can last for aweek or so, depending on the type of plant. Star magnolias are the day liliesof woodies, but quince sometimes goes nearly two weeks. Such stems look fine ina container by themselves, or they’ll ad’d an artisan touch to one of thosebargain-priced clusters of florist flowers or pots of forced spring bulbs.
Forced forsythia blossoms make late winter more bearable.
Isuppose later flowering beauties, such as lilac and crabapple, can be forced.But I never have time to try. Long before getting around to these, nature providesbunches of daffodils, sprigs of hyacinths and of course forsythia and quince inthe garden. By then the grass is green, and occasionally a balmy south windwhispers of even better things to come. Such diversions — not to mention thelong gardening to-do list — keep me from expanding my forcing horizons.
Perhapsyou’ve tried tried some of the later flowers and want to share yourexperiences. Please do.
Yes, some food foragers hunt for mushrooms to savor, but I seek out these “flowers of the forests” for other reasons — the thrill of the hunt, the chance to photograph their beauty and the puzzle of finding their ID.
I wasn’t always this way. My first introductions to mushrooms were through friends who invited me to go morel hunting in the spring. I tagged along but never seemed to have the eye or patience to spot the elusive honeycomb-capped delicacies on the woodland floor. I seemed to get too distracted by the wildflowers in bloom. By luck one fall, my soccer-loving son and I were hiking and spotted a puffball mushroom thinking the large orb was an abandoned soccer ball.
This fall, my indifference for the fungi world changed when another friend invited me to a mushroom workshop. Predictably, the audience kept asking the presenter if this one is edible or that one was poisonous. But each time, he would respond “I just like to hunt for them not eat them.” I thought “how bizarre” to be a mushroom expert but have no interest in their culinary value. After the talk, my friend and I headed to look over his impressive collection spread across a big table. There were striated shelf fungi, big puffballs and even dainty red-capped ones. We oohed and awed at their diversity in color, texture and form, all found throughout Ohio.
No surprise, I returned home with a new set of eyes. I started looking for the more obvious mushrooms and fungi – the bright-orange Chicken Mushrooms and patterned Turkey Tails. Then I noticed more obscure ones — oyster mushrooms up the side of a decaying tree and velvet foot mushrooms on a decaying log. I ordered a Midwest mushroom guide and borrowed a more comprehensive one from the library. Gradually, I started seeking out others on the underside of logs or on newly fallen dead trees. I even experimented with making mushroom spore prints to confirm IDs. Thankfully, we had a wet winter with many warmer days, which are ideal for winter mushrooms.
Spore print
To make spore print, turn mushroom caps gill-side down overnight
So, in the next few weeks, I encourage others to explore this amazing fungi world, especially as the woods thaw and before they’re covered with a layer of competing green growth. While I’m still a novice, I share the following images and resource links with hopes others might also discover these fascinating fungi. For the mycologists reading this, I welcome your help with the IDs. Happy hunting!
“All Along the Watch Tower“- a design by Nick McCullough for the Philadelphia Flower Show – March 2-10, 2019
By Debra Knapke
We often look back on a person’s career and think we see the pivotal career-moment: “Ah, this is where it happened”. But Nick McCullough is not new to the world of landscape and garden design, and the Philadelphia Garden Show is his next – giant – step.
Nick has been building his skills for close to 20 years.
First as a student of art history and horticulture and, then with training in
design in England, Nick positioned himself to blend art, plants and a creative
eye to create contemporary gardens.
Teresa and I had a sneak preview of Nick’s talent when he
submitted a design for the Perennial Plant Association Landscape Design Award
program. The shade garden design was a
subtle interplay of green, gold, silver and white perennials and shrubs. It was
stunning.
Photo credit: Nick McCullough
His design for the Philadelphia Flower Show is the polar opposite of a calm, enfolding shade garden. Think sun, mirrors, colors exploding, and immersion in nature. For a more detailed description of his design, visit his Thinking Outside the Boxwood blogwhere Nick explains his inspirations and the execution of his design.
We wish Nick success as he presents his garden to the public,
and we look forward to his future ventures.
