Oh, the doldrums of winter. “Wake up your garden” and prepare to welcome in spring beginning this month and into April.
Start by donning those work gloves, grabbing that rake and gently removing all the leaves, twigs and sticks, pine needles and other winter debris that have collected in your once beautiful flower gardens.
Attack your sunniest areas first and gradually make your way through your garden beds, as March and even April in New Hampshire can be fickle. You don’t want to “undress” your tender plants too soon.
With a hand rake, ever-so-carefully uncover the green sprouts of flowering bulbs where they are peeking out but leave two-to-three inches of mulch around them for protection. Also keep mulch around but not covering the crowns of any perennials that are starting to emerge from the ground.
A sprinkling of bone meal throughout your plant beds is always a good thing! Fertilize your spring bulbs as soon as their green shoots start to break through the soil by applying a small amount of bone meal or any dry type of balanced (usually 10-10-10) commercial plant food formulated specifically for spring bulbs. Tulips in particular are heavy feeders.
Compost, manure or any organic fertilizer can be lightly applied now and gently raked or hoed into the top four-to-six inches of the soil. This also helps to fluff up and aerate the soil.
Deadhead/remove the spent flowers at this time, but don’t cut or pull off the bulbs’ foliage. It needs to die down slowly as it releases nutritious juices back into the bulb for next year’s blooms. If the yellowing stalks are too unsightly for you, gently bend them over and cover them with a layer of mulch. Something to think about for next year is to plant summer flowering bulbs like daylilies in front of and around your tulips and daffodils. Then, just as your spring bulbs are starting to wither and look unsightly, the green leaves and stalks of the daylilies will be taking off and as they grow will act as camouflage for your decaying daffodil and tulips.
Here’s a helpful tip: Photograph your spring bulb flowers when they are in full bloom so that you can look over the photographs to know what new bulbs you may want to purchase and where to plant them this fall.
Prune most of your trees and shrubs in early spring as well, especially where you see winter damage but do not prune your spring flowering bushes like forsythia, azalea, rhododendrons, etc. because you will be cutting off their buds and you just might not see any blooms this spring! The right time is immediately after the blossoms have faded.
Prune back summer flowering shrubs and vines like Wisteria and Honeysuckle before new growth begins and prune back roses to remove all winter damage.
Now is the time to pull any weeds you may start to see but be careful not to pull any tiny seedlings that may be emerging by mistake! And as time goes on, keep in mind that if you pull the flowering part of the weed immediately, it won’t distribute hundreds of its weed seeds all over your garden for you to contend with all through the growing season.
So get out in your garden!
Joyce Kimball is a member and former president of the Bow Garden Club and a UNH Cooperative Extension-trained master gardener.
