With the temperature fluctuations this past week, I can understand why native plants may be slow to “wake up.” Any plant well adapted to fickle spring weather can cope with temperatures in the 60s one day followed by snow the next. They just take their time and resist being fooled by weather flux. Not native yet hardy Crocus have started to bloom and can handle an inch of snow. The very tips of daffodils and hyacinth can also emerge and linger patiently until the sunlight gets strong enough to coax blooms and bees out of winter slumber.
Extreme shifts in weather are the primary reason I prefer to plant younger perennials, shrubs, and trees. They have smaller root masses that can work their way into new locations with less stress to the overall plant. After a few seasons, these plants will have grown accustomed to their new homes and grown into the new spots with fewer setbacks. Planting perennial seeds outdoors in a nursery plot, where you can tend them closely, allows the seedlings to start in similar conditions as their ultimate home. The strongest ones survive and will be able to withstand the weather in your microclimate.
So don’t be April fooled into starting your non-native, heat-loving vegetable seeds too early. Seeds of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and squash need warm soils to start and for transplanting. Transplanting too early will stress the plants and set them back, which defeats the whole point of starting your seeds indoors! Wait until the middle of April before starting these seeds and plant them in the garden when soil has warmed, typically around June 1 in our Hardiness Zone 5/6a.
Keep concentrating on the bigger picture of your garden. As you gently rake out dead stems and broken branches from your gardens, watch where you step. Maybe you need to mark that spot for the next time to avoid crushing an emerging geranium or summer phlox. Plan stone pathways or install a few flat stepping stones through larger perennial and shrub borders. Those will do double duty later as slug traps in mid-summer.
Cut out dead stems of your early bearing raspberry canes that you missed last summer. These would be gray-brown compared to the reddish canes that will flower and fruit in early summer.
Twice-bearing raspberries fruit in June and again in September. You can cut back to the ground all the canes of your September-bearing raspberry canes now. This will eliminate a June fruiting but encourage a more robust fruiting and harvest in September. If you don’t know what kind you have, leave them for a season.
Any spring-flowering shrubs that you prune now have buds set on last year’s stems. Don’t fret about pruning them to a better shape. You can still enjoy the flowers by trimming the ends off your pruned branches and putting them in a vase close to bright light. Blooms should appear in two to three weeks. This is also a fun way to confirm what kind of shrub you have. Blueberry flowers look like lily of the valley. I have a few stems just starting to flower after three weeks in water.
Do a soil test soon before you add any lime or compost to your gardens or lawn. The soil test can tell you the pH and what amendments will improve your plants’ health. The pH affects how well a plant can absorb nutrients from the soil. Blueberries for example need a pH of 4.5 to 5. Most vegetable gardens do well with a pH of 6 to 6.8. Lawn grasses do best with a pH closer to 7 or neutral acidity. Instructions for taking samples and how to send them can be found at university extension websites. This is a link to the UMass Extension Soil Testing Lab.
Amending garden acidity to suit your plants can be tiresome after many years. Consider planting shrubs and perennials that are better adapted to the natural pH of your yard. Of course, pH can vary from place to place on one property. Lavender prefers a sweeter soil with pH of 6.8 to 7.8, and mine grows very well close to the concrete foundation of my house. Typically, the mineral elements of concrete leach somewhat and will sweeten the surrounding soil. Testing different soils from different gardens around your property will help you determine what will grow best in each spot and reduce hard work trying to “correct” the soil later. Another lazy gardener tip!
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.
