BUSY, BUSY
Spring is poetry on steroids. A million plants explode out of the earth within the space of about a week. Blossoms burst open, spewing pollen into the air and every second an additional thousand formerly dry noses begin to drip. Anyone who calls him or herself a gardener should be out in the garden every minute of every day.
However, it has come to my attention that this may not be possible for some of you. In fact, those lucky enough to have gainful employment may only have enough time in the garden every day to deadhead two or three daffodils. How then can you get a beautiful garden while keeping your job, caring for your family and doing any of the other million things that everyone has to do?
First you have to prioritize. In the garden, as in other places, imminent death should be dealt with first. If you have bought any plants that are waiting to go into the garden, at least keep them watered. If the plants don’t mind wet feet, put the pots or cell packs in plastic trays and water the trays rather than the individual plants. Find a convenient holding area, preferably near a spigot, and keep all your new plants there. At the very least, park a watering can nearby. If you have bought a bare root rose, plop it in a convenient, water-filled bucket for 24 hours and then pot it up in a suitable container. You can figure out where to plant it later. Place the potted rose in a sunny holding area.
Next, deal with ephemeral plants that will disappear without a trace before you know it. Take a look at your daffodils, snowdrops and other early spring bloomers. If they need dividing, do it now. If you don’t know whether they need dividing, look at the dead flowerheads, which, if you have been strapped for time, are probably still on the plants. If flowers only developed on the outside of a particular clump and not in the middle, the clump needs dividing. Dig up the whole thing–there is no need to be shy. Brush off the excess dirt, pull the clump into two or three pieces, replant one of them in the original hole and find two new places for your other divisions. Do not cut off the leaves. Water everything. If you work efficiently, this task can be completed in ten minutes. If you have to choose between dividing snowdrops and daffodils, do the snowdrops first. They seem to disappear overnight.
Get the worst of the overgrowth taken care of. Arm yourself with clippers and loppers and do a tour of your garden and property. If any shrub is impinging on paths or swamping its neighbors, clip or lop off the offending branches. Last week I noticed that a rampaging rambling rose had begun trespassing on my neighbors’ property. No good can come of such rambunctiousness, especially since my neighbors have small children. I made short work of the offending canes. I’ll do the fine pruning of the rest of the bush later, as time permits.
If you have a big garden you can trim and prune every day of your life and still find straggling branches. Doing a rough “once over” and getting the worst of them at least buys you a bit of time in this busiest of seasons.
If you purchased seeds of annual flowers, sow them directly in the ground and mark the places where they were planted. I like to plant in trenches because digging individual holes takes time that I don’t have. Water daily if there is no rain.
Many gardeners reduce the sizes of their lawns over the years until the grassy areas are tiny, all in the name of having additional planting space. If, however, you want to have some kind of lawn, you might consider the case of the best lawn that I have ever encountered. Its owner was a man who kept an air-tight plastic container of grass seed by the back door throughout the growing season. At least once a day, he toured his yard, grass seed in hand, and sprinkled it on places that he thought looked less than lush. He never fertilized, aerated, limed or did much of anything else except water his grass. This is not a strategy recommended by any garden expert or grass seed purveyor, but it certainly saves time and it definitely worked in the case of one particular lawn. The method assumes steady watering of both old and new grass, but if you are working towards the perfect lawn, you will do that anyway.
And finally, there is weeding, which is always with us. Just as the desirable plants are growing at warp speed, so are the weeds. I try to pluck some out every time I am outside. If you have limited time, snatch up the ones that are in the fronts of the borders. On the weekends, set aside ten minutes for an in-depth weeding of a particular area. You will be amazed at what you can do in a relatively short time.
The most time-consuming habit of all is perfectionism. Give it up and you will gain extra hours every day. Try to look at your landscape as an Impressionist painting–a wash of color and texture, with some green blurry areas that might or might not be weeds. Abandoning perfectionism lets you look at your garden as an artistic expression rather than a morality play. You will feel much better.