Spring-blooming perennials have been showing off their stuff. Garden roses will be blooming soon, too. If roses call to you, shop for hardy roses bred to be black-spot and disease resistant. That is the lazy gardener way.
The recent wet week gave my vegetable garden a good start, but it was a bit chilly. Lower leaves of a couple tomato plants have turned yellow, probably due to excessive rain. Nitrogen can leach from the soil in rainy weather. I will simply trim those leaves off and boost the fertilizer. This is not just an aesthetic decision. Yellowing leaves will attract pests because the yellow signifies a weakened plant as well.
Most vegetables have taken off beautifully. Last weekend, I tried to catch up on planting the dahlia and bright annuals in my assorted patio pots. The pots serve as barriers or pretty markers for spots on my property. Planting and arranging the annuals in a pleasing way took most of the afternoon. Luckily, if I don’t like the result, I can switch it around in a few weeks while the plants are still young.
Use straw mulch around vegetable plants to reduce weed pressure. Around strawberry crowns, the mulch helps keep strawberries off damp soil and prevents fungus. Remove weeds from flowering gardens before they flower and set seed, too.
I still have baby plants to monitor. I moved my starts of flowering tobacco Nicotiana outside for some brisk air and brighter sunshine. I put them in a shaded location that still gives them more light than the bright south-facing window. I will add to their time spent outside every day this week in preparation for planting outside in a sunny spot next weekend. Bring your houseplants and any plant started indoors to the outside with the same gradual exposure method (doubling outside time everyday—two, four, eight, 16 hours in shade) to give them a boost of photosynthesis for the summer.
Plants depend on light for food production, and some have adapted to more or less light. Variegated plants need more sun exposure to keep up the variegation. A variegated hosta can take more direct sun than a solid green variety. The white or yellow patches will be more pronounced with more sunlight.
A struggling hosta at the base of trees may be suffering from too little water. Perennials and annual flowers growing under trees need extra water to compete with tree roots. Add moisture-retaining compost to that growing area at least every year and water more often, especially during periods of drought.
We should expect competition in our gardens, and good perennial planning helps reduce that competition. I admit, I planted my poppies too close to the peony tubers. I had low expectations for the peony transplants, and you get what you expect. By planting these too close to each other, they both have struggled. This past wet May has allowed them both to flourish, but the plant clumps have grown into each other and disease will follow. I will dig up and move the poppy after flowering to give each more space. A lazy gardener tip: Follow spacing considerations when first planting perennials.
Thin crowded branches of spring-flowering shrubs like lilacs. Remove branches back to the main trunk if they are too close to the next branch or emerge directly above them and shade the lower branch out. Thinning provides air circulation to reduce powdery mildew fungus while also encouraging more inner leaves to feed the plant and produce more flowers.
Cut back branches that emerge from below grafts of hybrids. My Arnold’s Promise hybrid witchhazel had beefy branches emerging from just below the soil surface, and these are shoots from the hardy rootstock, the species Hamamelis vernalis. Although they will flower, these branch flowers don’t have the larger decorative appeal of the blooms in the upper hybrid branches. Pruning these side suckers will send energy back into the flowering branches that I want.
Now is a good time to cut back Stonecrop Autumn Joy and other Hylotelephium spectabile sedums to get bushier plants with stronger stems. Cut plant stems back by a third to halfway to a growing leaf node. The plants will branch from there and have stronger supporting stems.
Spotted lanternfly eggs are hatching. Report spotted lanternfly nymphs if you see them for the first time in your area. Berkshire County has no established colonies as yet. This voracious pest can do serious harm to our farms and forests. Also inspect cars, boats, supplies, or equipment that was kept outdoors in infected areas before transporting it to Berkshire County. Pests will hitch-hike. Please educate yourself, scout, and report here if you see any.
I call myself the Lazy Berkshire Gardener because I don’t want to work too hard in my gardens. I want to enjoy them. I find it easier to observe my landscape and let the compost happen, the water pool up, or daisies to self-sow. I look for ways to do the minimum task for the biggest impact. For example, mulching is better than spraying and much better than weeding all season. I look for beautiful, low-maintenance plants that thrive in or at least tolerate my garden conditions. Plus, I am willing to live with the consequences if I miss something.
