Yeah, annual flowers can get expensive, they take some watering, and they’re going to die at the end of the season – if the rabbits, deer and groundhogs don’t get them first. But I think they’re well worth the effort anyway. No other type of plant gives you this kind of color throughout […]
Sorry if you were planning to mulch, but Sunday and Monday’s rain was a good thing. The soil was getting sneaky dry for this time of year. April showers usually make it easy on us and our new plantings, but I already had to water my young veggie plants three times. Raised […]
I just ran across the first case of unfortunate premature bloomulation this week in the form of fried magnolia flowers. The main danger of early and extended warmth is what happens when the temperatures suddenly dip back to below their freezing norms. Some plants are more sensitive to that than others. Magnolias […]
For a season that seemed like it was taking forever to get here, we’re suddenly pretty far along. The sustained warm spell has pushed blooms, bugs and plant growth at least a couple of weeks ahead of where we’d normally be. I’m seeing lilacs blooming already, buds nearing bloom on rhododendrons and even […]
We’re getting spoiled by this extended warm spell, which is a nice payback for the cold winter and back-to-back February snow dumpings. But don’t get petunia fever. We’re probably not done with frost yet. In an average year, urban areas around Harrisburg are done with killing frost by April 20. The all-time latest […]
That was sudden. Seems like we were just staring at mountains of white, and now the grass is greening, and the first main wave of spring bulbs is in full glory. The sudden and sustained warm-up has really moved things along the last two weeks. Many bulbs went from bud to peak bloom […]
More than half of my vegetable garden is planted… how about you? Cool-season crops tolerate frosts. End of March is normally not too soon to plant onion sets, cabbage and broccoli plants, and seeds of radishes, spinach, peas, lettuce and mesclun. I also planted eyes of ‘Red Norland’ potatoes and even two […]
Who needs a health club when you’re a gardener in March? I sure hope you all are burning calories in the glorious weather (finally!) We needed this to start whipping the landscape back into shape after the gardener-unfriendly winter. Just don’t hurt your back! Although I was out edging in the rain […]
The snow is gone enough that we can get out there and start to reconnect with our long-lost gardens. Soon, it’ll all be gone (the snow, not the gardens). I’m getting a ton of questions about broken branches – especially on Japanese maple, hydrangeas, boxwoods, white pines and similar brittle-branched species. Except […]
Get used to seeing white. We’ll be looking at it for a long time. Maybe we can’t edge the beds (what beds?) or cut back the switchgrass, but a little thing like 3 feet of snow doesn’t put gardeners totally out of action until April. One thing to watch for is animal damage […]