Horticulture Chair Carol Giunta warned us to have…
Patience!! The weather is certainly ahead of last year, but we still have at least a month to go before we can really get back into outdoor gardening. While you are waiting, and to fend off spring fever, here are a few tasks to do while waiting for the ground to and air to warm up!
- Cut back winter damage on evergreen perennials such as hellebores, ginger, epimedium as well as ornamental grasses
- WHENEVER POSSIBLE DO NOT WALK ON LAWNS!!! The ground is still soft and wet and you can damage the turf. However, you can spend a little time picking up winter debris and monitoring for repairs to do later in the spring.
- Start watching for the emergence of invasives and cut them to the ground. It doesn’t take much time before they take over!
- You can also monitor the emergence of winter weeds such as garlic mustard, bittercress, dandelion, wintercreeper and bedstraw and pull them before they become your spring gardening nightmare.
- Trees and shrub care: prune anything that is dead, damaged or diseased.
- If you have a cold frame, or just can’t resist the urge, plant peas, lettuce and spinach outside.
- Resist applying fertilizer until soil temperatures reach at least 40o F
Finally, get outside whenever its nice out and start dreaming about what new garden beds, plants, annuals, you’d like to add this year!