I was very excited recently to see a newspaper article entitled “How to get your garden spring ready in one weekend.” I was ready, the garden was more than ready, and frankly, I was looking for those magical tips and miraculous hacks that would condense the work of several weeks into one forty-eight hour period.
Of course I didn’t have the entire weekend available, due to the inescapable fact that the state and Federal governments require me to file tax returns. Still, I was hoping, as always, to maximize the available hours with the benefit of excellent advice.
Imagine my chagrin when the first paragraph was about lawns—grass cutting, reseeding bald patches and collecting and shredding dead leaves.
When I think of spring clean-up, the lawn is the least of my worries. I might add that I do indeed shred the dead leaves, but only after raking them out the beds. All the lawn and garden leaf detritus gets shredded via a single pass with the lawnmower.
I skipped the part about “cleaning up the greenhouse”, because I don’t have one. I really should clean out the garage, but that will take longer than forty-eight hours and it will do nothing for the spring-readiness of the garden, not to mention the spring-readiness of my psyche.
I thought about “freshening up the grasses”, because I own one stand of tall variegated miscanthus grass that isn’t looking terribly fresh. I am not wild about the miscanthus, but it responds to my lack of interest by growing vigorously every year. All of the “freshening up” it will ever get from me will come from the act of hacking the dead foliage all the way back to the ground. Fortunately that fits with the forty-eight hour plan, because it only takes fifteen minutes.
As for some of the other steps, including “plant potatoes”, “grow your own salad leaves” and “build a bug hotel”, I will save time and effort by not doing them. Salad leaves might get sown eventually, but this year potatoes will come from the local Farmers’ Market. I can probably get a pre-made “bug hotel” at the same place.
I will take the author’s advice and give my roses a quick prune. It will be a once-over that will happen just after I rake out those beds and get the worst of the chickweed, onion grass, and other plant marauders out with the help of my large garden fork. More comprehensive rose pruning will come after the garden cleanout. In one weekend, I can probably get rid of the majority of dead or weak branches, introducing a little quick shaping as I go. The roses have broken dormancy now, starting on the growth that will eventually lead to abundant blooms. They need the fertilizer mentioned in the article and I will add fertilizing to my bed-specific list of quick fixes.
If I were giving out advice on shaping up the garden for spring in one weekend, I would focus on leaves and debris. The beds are full of them, as are the bases of the hedges and individual shrubs. Getting them all raked out and taken care of makes the entire property look better and lets the snowdrops, crocuses and early daffodils shine. A leaf blower would help, but to date I have found better ways to spend my money, so I will use the rake. Admittedly, it is slower, but I will not be deaf at the end.
The shrub pruning that the article advises will be limited, because so many of my shrubs are spring bloomers. To prune now would be to deny myself the bouquets that I will assemble from my flowering quince, deutzia, weigela and “bridal veil” spirea in a few week’s time. I will save time, effort and flowers by only pruning the wayward butterfly bushes and roses of Sharon. They don’t flower until later in the season and will be undisturbed by a good, quick haircut right now.
By eliminating at least half of the chores mentioned in the article, I was actually able to accomplish a lot of “freshening up “in one weekend. I feel better, the garden looks better, and next weekend I might just have the time and inclination to take some of the author’s other recommendations, like growing strawberries in an old hanging basket, or cleaning houseplant containers before repotting their contents.
Sometimes gardening is about multi-tasking. Sometimes it is about editing. A combination of the two is most likely the best way to get the garden “spring ready” in a single weekend.