Today I’ve written out a springtime garden chore list for you to think about. Soon your garden will be waking up from its winter nap.
As the weather warms and then gets cold again, spring bulbs will emerge, becoming confused by the changes. There’s nothing we can do about that.
However, there are some things we can do for our garden spaces. It’s kind of like the spring cleaning we often do indoors.
Garden Tasks For Early Spring:
This is when it’s time to clean up flower bed and container soil surfaces of all the winter debris that has accumulated. If you put winter mulch around your perennials and ornamental grasses, now is the time to remove it.
Cut back last year’s dried brown foliage to give your plants a head start. Wear protective gloves when working on prickly leaved plants or shrubs.
Now is a good time to divide perennials, another chore on the springtime garden chore list. The dividing of perennials means you’ll have more plants to locate elsewhere, or give to others. Dividing perennials keeps your plants healthy.
After a few years, plants that grow in a large clump can thin out and leave a bare patch. The way to keep this from happening is to divide plants. This encourages new growth.
Cleaning Up, Trimming & Dividing Plants:
Once you’ve tackled the cleaning up and trimming and dividing, it’s time to add new mulch to discourage weeds. It will also help your plants retain moisture. Spread the mulch evenly while wearing gloves or by using a rake.
Don’t layer mulch too close to plants because this encourages diseases.
If you have fruit trees, now is the time to trim them. You will want to do this before there are buds on the branches, as this will stress the tree. This is also the time to trim evergreen shrubs.
Before you begin to plant, you will want to make sure you don’t need to do maintenance on your hardscaping.
Hardscaping means the non-living elements in your landscaping. Check pathways and bedding stones to make sure they aren’t loose and will hold in soil.
Clean up the outdoor furniture and get it in shape for a summer outdoors, another task on your springtime garden chore list.
Planting Cool Weather Plants:
Cool weather plants, like lettuce, potatoes, and peas grow best when the ground is still somewhat cool. So once the soil has thawed, plant these vegetables in your garden. Then they will be ready to harvest come early summer.
The middle of spring is when you will start seeing more action in your garden spaces. Perennials are waking up and beginning to emerge and show new green shoots. This is when you can start planting more plants.
Perennials take longer to grow new roots. If you’re anxious for color and filling in bare spots, plant hardy cool weather plants. Consider planting pansies, nasturtiums, snapdragons, sweet peas, alyssum, calendula, or larkspur.
I love the scent of alyssum, but as it gets hot the blooms dry up. So you want to plant alyssum early to enjoy it while you can.
Learning From Garden Mistakes:
I learned last year that lobelia shuts down when it gets hot. You may recall that I planted purple lobelia around the Kangaroo Fern. It was beautiful when I planted it. But before long the blooms began to shrivel and fall to the ground.
That fern plant didn’t make it through January. If I get another Kangaroo fern plant, I’ll know to surround it with hardier flowers that don’t wither when it gets hot.
Annual pansies will also bloom best before the heat of summer hits. So fill containers or beds with pansies early on to have color in your garden.
If you want to plant new trees or shrubs, plant them as soon as the ground is no longer frozen. This will give them time to build roots before the hot weather hits.
Then mulch around them. You want to mulch before weeds begin to grow. This will cut down on weeding chores in the months ahead.
In late spring you will have to begin cleaning up the flowers that have already bloomed for the season.
With flowering bulbs, let the foliage die back on its own. Wait until its completely yellow or dried before snipping it back.
Planting Warm-Season Plants & Herbs:
You can begin to transplant seedlings of warm-season plants, like tomatoes and peppers, as well as herbs.
Start shopping for annuals to plant to make your garden, yard, and porch/patio look pretty. Annuals bring instant color and gratification.
Spring blooming bulbs should be planted during the fall season. But now is the time to plant summer bulbs if there will be no more freezes in your area. Check for the latest average frost date to get a better idea of when to plant.
Now you can begin to enjoy the fruits of your efforts. Here’s to spring and summer gardening!
Thanks for sharing these gardening tips! It’s definitely a good idea to cut back the dried brown foliage from last year to give our plants a fresh start. Wearing protective gloves is essential, especially when dealing with prickly leaved plants or shrubs.
Hello Brenda
I really appreciated this post. I don’t know much about plants and gardening but would like to know more. Thank you for sharing your tips and experiences with growing. Looking forward to trying some of these ideas!
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We have snow and the ground is frozen so it’s another 4-6 weeks before any of these suggestions can apply to me. We have a very short growing season and wind 24/7 in March usually.
Yesterday we broke a record here in SE Wisconsin with temperature at 73 degrees and sunny. Then the warm front passed on to the East and a cold front plunged our temperatures 50 degrees. Today it’s 16 degrees right now and winds out of the NW at around 25 mph. No working outdoors in a tee shirt today! We had several days of mild weather and it felt great to be able to rake up the yard where dead leaves come to magically multiply, clean up the nut shells left behind by the squirrels I feed, and thinking about what I would love to do around the yard, if only I had an army of gardeners to do all the digging, planting and building of paths and raised garden beds and several thousand dollars to see it made reality! Oh well. The annual visits to our favorite nurseries with my gardening friends will take place in mid-May. For years I’ve sat down and make a list of plants I want to buy and have designs for the front and back yards, but somehow most of the items on the list don’t make it home with me. I am generally a pretty disciplined person, but not when I’m let loose on acres of land with tons of plants, shrubs and trees.
Brenda, thank you for your timely tips today and always. My husband planted red potatoes today…they will be so good with the homegrown beans and tomatoes. I hope this summer is not as hot and dry as last year.
Yay ! Thanks for this reminder. Excited with anticipation as when the proscenium curtains begin to open up. Will make first trips to nurseries in about one week.
It’s a lot of work, but your results are always worth it!
I’m not a gardener however you’ve provided some excellent tips.