It’s hard not to think spring when the temperatures start to rise, the snow begins to melt and the calendar finally flips to a month you don’t typically associate with the effects of winter.
All you want to do is go outside, get some sunshine and dig in the dirt a little bit. We get it, but the key is patience, which is easier said than done after enduring the last few months that we’d all like to forget – at least for a while.
But even though this is the Insider’s Guide to Spring, the season isn’t officially here yet. And if you start getting your garden ready for spring and summer before it does actually get here, you’ll be creating a lot more work for yourself in the long run and possibly doing more harm then good.
“There are certain plants that just don’t like the cold,” said Charlie Cole, owner of Cole Gardens. “But we understand there’s a lot of pent up aggressions waiting for spring.”
Now, we are far from experts when it comes to gardening. We play one in this newspaper from time to time, but in real life we’re pretty clueless. That’s why we decided to take a trip over to Cole Gardens to meet with Cole, one of our best Instagrammers and knowledgeable garden guru. Sure, we could have taken the easy way and made a bunch of stuff up for tips that have no real facts behind them, but that might have some repercussions when we get angry phone calls and emails after ruining gardens all over the area.
So instead we went to someone who does this kind of stuff for a living. And what we quickly learned is that it’s too early to be out in the garden – if you can even see it yet. Cole recommended getting your spring fever out in a constructive way, like picking up bright colored plants for the inside of your house or pansies for the front step because they can take a freeze and still thrive. You’ll see just how much that little change will go to enduring the final few weeks of colder temperatures.
“Don’t focus on your whole back yard at first. Focus on your door step or front door,” Cole said. “Just because there’s snow outside, you can still have color.”
Unfortunately, if you make your way to Cole Gardens you might see a bunch of things you want to buy to highlight the outside of your home, and while Cole wants to see you take things home, of course after paying for them, timing is the key.
“Typically we get stuff in before people are ready,” Cole said. “We want to get people excited, thinking spring.”
But every year, Cole understands that people want to get going on things as soon as possible. And while he can’t blame them, it’s not always the best thing to do.
“It’s one of those things where we have to retrain our customers and retrain ourselves,” Cole said.
While looking around the shop is one idea; another is to check out all the latest gardening magazines. That way you can get all kinds of ideas and come up with a game plan for when the ground is thawed and plants will survive.
“The actual planting part is still far off,” Cole said.
We’ve always heard that Memorial Day weekend is the time to really start, and Cole agreed, so it must be true.
“Gardening is decorating,” Cole said. “It’s just decorating the outside with living things.”
But it doesn’t all have to be about planting. Before anything goes into the ground, you have to clean up your garden area – especially if you skipped that step last fall. It’s a good idea to turn over the soil and add new compost.
And when you do finally get things in the ground, don’t feel like they have to be there forever. Those beautiful landscapes you see in the gardening magazines have likely been changed quite a few times to make it look just right.
“No one ever said doing things twice is a bad thing. It’s just double the work,” Cole said. “Trial and error is okay. It’s what makes gardening fun.”
So happy gardening, and if you have any questions, you might want to check out Cole Gardens’ mobile app available in the iTunes store and Google Play. It can make your life a little easier, and we’re all for that.
