Spring Going-ons

It is the tenth of April and it is too hot to work outside this afternoon. Well, for a summer day it would be ideal, but having just come out of the winter cold, 75 degrees is too hot for me. So my solution is to sit inside and write a garden blog. By the time I finish, it will have cooled off outside and I will be able to return to work on whatever is next in my long To-Do list.

Seed starting has been going in earnest for a couple of months now. Different plants require different lengths of time to go from planting the seed to transplanting seedlings outside after the last frost. The gryphon begonias were started at the beginning of February and are still only the size of a silver dollar coin. After washing and sterilizing the pots, the seeds were sown, seedlings emerged and grew to transplanting size and then moved into sixpacks. By the time I finish I will have both benches filled with seedlings. Oh, and that reminds me, in my latest UNH Master Gardener class (I am so enjoying it and learning a lot)I found out that my southern-most region of central New Hampshire has been reclassified from zone 5b to zone 6a. So I should expect an earlier last frost date in the spring and a later frost date in the fall to account for a couple of weeks more gardening time. This is one of the very few good things to come out of climate change.

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I have nice memories from many years ago of looking in February for the first snowdrops blooming along he south facing foundation wall of Rock Cottage in North Reading. We are not nearly as far long in our spring season as that, so I have to content myself with blooms in mid to late March. Patty says that the hyacinths have a wonderful aroma but unfortunately I can’t seem to smell them.

Last fall I completed the renovation of our raised bed gardens by the driveway. At that time I topped them off with a three inch layer of finished compost. I guess I ran out of gas though and so this spring I had the task of spreading finished compost on the raised beds of the greenhouse garden.

Last year the annual flower boxes sat down at the bed level with plants that grew up in height. This year I decided to raise the boxes up to the top of the fence and grow trailing annuals. I have started trailing verbena, dichondra, trailing lobelia, ivy, nasturtium and trailing snapdragons.

The lavender plants have been raked and pruned, ready to produce a nice bloom again this year. The fruit trees, bushes and canes have been pruned and dormant oil has been sprayed. There are more flower buds on the trees and bushes than I can remember in a long time. I will post a picture of the magnolia as soon as it opens ( just a few days now) as it has an incredible number of big fat buds on it. The shade garden has been raked but with the lack of rain, the perennials are a bit reticent about emerging. There are other flower beds to be raked and fertilized. There is so much work to do but only so much energy to do it. Slow and steady wins the race, right? I will leave you with a picture of our little plum tree, bursting with flower buds. Mmm, sweet, warm plums straight off the tree, bursting with juice. I can’t wait!