SPRING GARDENING TIPS

Pack the plants together to keep down weeds and create large sweeps of color.

• Be sure that all dead foliage from last fall is cleared away.
• Now the fun begins!  
• As young perennials continue their spring “rebirth,” you can take advantage of their wonderful ability to be divided.  Masses of a single color can be created and color can be brought to new areas of your garden. Think of your landscape as a lovely painting just waiting to be “completed” with colors from your flower palette. This way, too, bare spots can be filled with the added goal of preventing weed growth. And, of course, you can always share your bounty with gardening buddies

Here again, masses of color are very effective. In early spring, keep dividing perennials and massing them.

• Some of the plants that may be divided now are bleeding hearts, asters, primrose, iris, daylilies, and chrysogonum. This is best done before they get too big. If you wait too long in the season to divide and transplant them, excessive wilting or death may result.
• To make plants bushier, cut back beautyberry, roses, St. John’s Wort, buddleia, and caryopteris in late March, early April.

 Daffodils put on a beautiful early spring show. Use creeping phlox as a ground cover to set them off.

• New study: The Royal National Rose Society gardens in England conducted a rose trial that seems to prove that rose deadheading radically effects its rebloom. “If it is clipped off at the neck, rather than to the first leaf bearing five leaflets, as rose wisdom once dictated, the bush reblooms sooner, with 50% more flowers over the season."

Primrose is another perennial that can be used effectively in masses or borders.

Linking to

My Romantic Home on Friday

My French Country Cottage on Friday

The Charm of Home on Friday

Common Ground on Friday
Pink Saturday on Saturday