Spring is in the air! Let Time Stand Still...

 

Time to visit the E.F. Gamble Historic Home & Garden in Palo Alto, Silicon Valley.  I didn't make it in Spring so far, but I was able to stop by for a visit in January and February.  And I was able to find lots of blooming shrubs, such as Azaleas, Camellias, Rhododendron, and amazing Magnolias. The property includes a rose garden, cutting garden, formal herb garden, demonstration bed, wisteria garden, and an allée. 
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Gamble has over 50 distinct camellia cultivars or species, including Camellia japonica ‘Kumasaka’, one of the oldest camellias in continuous culture. In fact, Gamble Garden is listed on the American Camellia Society's American Camellia Trail.  

The Gamble Garden Camellia Collection has a total number of camellia plants: 61.  Miss Gamble purchased many of her camellias and rhododendrons from Toichi Domoto, a Japanese-American pioneer camellia grower and world-class hybridizer whose family had a nursery in Hayward, California. The Domotos imported camellias and azaleas from Japan in the 1920s and 1930s under perilous conditions.  In 1939, Miss Gamble purchased a Camellia japonica ‘Kumasaka.’ It is one of the oldest camellias in continuous culture. Kumasaka was clearly recorded in Japan in 1695 and thrives in Gamble Garden today. 

The small botanical garden is a non-profit education center and garden, open to the public. 

The 2.5-acre garden includes formal and demonstration gardens. 

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The Gamble Garden's Spring program includes their famous Spring Tour, and classes to help you prepare your own garden for the coming year.  Don't miss this popular Bay Area celebration, now in an all-virtual format. 
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A ticket to ‘Preview Party at Home.'  The event includes the talk with Jennifer Jewell, (Garden Writer & Editor, Radio Host) and exclusive access to Over the Garden Fence (OTGF), Silent Auction, Vendor Marketplace, and Plant Sales, all online.
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The Elizabeth F. Gamble Garden the perfect setting for your wedding ceremony, reception, rehearsal dinner, bridal shower, baby shower, day-after-wedding brunch, anniversary event, etc.

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The garden is open to the public every day during daylight hours. Admission is free, but donations are gratefully accepted. The gardens are not receiving any financial support from the (wealthy) city of Palo Alto...
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Enjoy your visit

1431 Waverly Street, Palo Alto, CA 94301 - off HWY 82 or train station Stanford

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Gourmet Spring Fruit & Veggies - in Europe

Embrace the Spring season, enjoy these favorite European spring foods

Italy: Try New Veggies

In Italian spring markets, you’ll find many familiar and many unfamiliar vegetables.  There will still be Artichokes in spring, the spiny artichokes of Sicily and Sardinia - and they will be inexpensive.  "Carciofi Spinoso Sardo", looks distinctly different from other varieties.  Also called the “edible thistle”, they date back to the ancient Egyptians.  Find these delicious fresh Artichokes from January to April. 

Try Agretti, a marsh grass that you saute in a little oil and some garlic.   Season lightly - if at all because it has a saltiness inherent in its place of birth.  Agretti is just perfect for quiches (and frittata or pasta dishes).   Native to the Mediterranean area, it can be easily mistaken for chives, but with slightly thicker and longer leaves. 

There is also Lampascione, really a specific type of hyacinth bulb that was once Cucina Povera.  It means the cooking of the poor and now has become quite trendy.  Check out the recipes and soak them well, changing the water often.   This Muscari (Muscari comosum) has an absolutely gorgeous flower, and the price from a greengrocer is a lot cheaper than one would find in a garden center.  Amazing that gardeners can choose between enjoying lovely spring flowers or food.  Reminds me of the Dutch who ate tulip bulbs during the war - which was the Dutch version of Cucina Povera. 

French Food in Spring

60 percent of France’s strawberry production is grown in the Dordogne Valley and production lies in and around the village of Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne.  These wild strawberries of France are a must! Even rarer, are the strawberries grown in the Aveyron are special and ripen earlier than garden strawberries.   Sensational delicious Strawberries can be bought and tasted at Farmer Markets in early May.   The "Gariguette" is the absolutely perfect, legendary French strawberry created by those who know everything about strawberries.


UK and Germany

Asparagus Festivals are taking place in the UK and in Germany in Spring.  Late April, early May is the start of a two-month asparagus festival in the Vale of Evesham in Worcestershire in the Cotswolds.  White asparagus season in Germany and the north of Europe starts in early May and lasts until late June.  The white asparagus is grown underground.  Therefore, the white asparagus is not exposed to sunlight and doesn't produce chlorophyll.   The verdant asparagus pokes through the dirt as it grows, soaking up the sun and producing chlorophyll, which is what turns the vegetable green.  White asparagus is often accompanied by thin slices of ham, new potatoes, and sauce hollandaise.

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Enjoy these delicious European Spring dishes! 

Or grow these veggies and fruits in your own garden!

2021 Perennial Plant of the Year

 

‘Cat’s Pajamas’ Catmint - A Perfect Pop of Color to Any Garden

Plant Breeder Proven Winners explains:  "Give it a year or two to mature and you’ll see that this petite little catmint forms a bowling ball-shaped mound that’s covered top to bottom in splashy blue blossoms that bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds adore."

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Two Flowering Seasons

"Catmint blooms first in late spring to early summer, then after a quick shearing, it flowers again from midsummer to fall.  Use it as a tidy, colorful border around your veggie garden where visiting bees will make regular visits and help boost your yields.  Or line your front border with a ribbon of this blue beauty and admire it every time you walk outside.  There are endless uses for this easy-to-grow, hardy perennial!"

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How to Grow

Catmint is hardy in zones 3-8, in full sun, average to poor (low nutrient) soil. 
Allow drying a bit between waterings.  It does not like waterlogged soil.  It grows 12-14” tall 
and 18-20” wide, and is deer and rabbit resistant.

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Christmas Planters

Here are some ideas on how to bring Christmas cheer to your outdoors:

 

How to Plant, Grow and Harvest Rhubarb

Rhubarb is a delicious cool-weather veggie and a great addition to any edible garden - even mixed in between flowers in a sunny perennial bed. 

The Chinese call rhubarb "the great yellow" and have used rhubarb root for medicinal purposes for thousands of years.  During Islamic times, it was imported along the Silk Road, reaching Europe in the 14th century through the ports of Aleppo and Smyrna.  Rhubarb was grown in Scotland from at least 1786, having been introduced to the Botanical Garden in Edinburgh.

With its delicious edible leaf stalks loaded with a tangy yet sweet, crisp flavor, it often serves as the perfect companion for strawberries or as the main ingredient in pies, jams, and jellies. Here are a few tips about how to plant, grow, and harvest Rhubarb:

Take the root and crown and place it on the ground.  Don’t put them more than 1 or 2 inches into the soil or they won’t come up.  Once flower stalks appear on the growing rhubarb, remove them right away so they don’t rob the plant of nutrients.  Cutting the seeds will trick the plant into continuing to produce delicious ruby red stalks, thereby extending the delectable season for rhubarb-strawberry pie.

Water the plants during dry weather.  Rhubarb doesn’t tolerate drought.  If newly planted, Rhubarb should not be harvested the first year, to help the plant establish itself.  Wait a year or two before you begin to harvest.

Make sure the plant is ready to be harvested.  The best time to harvest is from spring to early summer—usually May to early July.  Although they can be picked into late summer, stop collecting the stalks well before the first frost, to help ensure that the plant makes it through winter.  To harvest, the stalks should be at least 10 to 15 inches long. 

Gently grab near the base of the desired stalk and slowly pull and twist. Make sure to cut the leaves off the stalks and discard them: they are poisonous and should never be consumed.

Splitting rhubarb will give new life to the plant.  Dig around the root clump (6 inches deep) and lift the whole plant from the ground.  Divide the root ball into sections containing at least one bud and up to two to three buds with plenty of roots by cutting down through the crown between the buds. 

Prior to transplanting, soak the refrigerated sections in room temperature water overnight. Select a planting site that is in full sun with a slightly acidic soil pH of 6.5.  Add lots of compost or composted manure and a handful of rock phosphate or bone meal per planting hole.  Mulch around the plant, best with straw. 

Happy Gardening!

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Mandevilla - Annual or Perennial?

 

Four or five years ago I found this beautiful tropical/subtropical plant in a nursery. I was immediately smitten by the lush blooms. In the meantime, they are amazingly popular and can even be found in ordinary garden centers. No wonder: They are vigorously blooming from late spring into fall, and will grow larger, especially the Mandevilla vines. 

Gardeners appreciate Mandevilla vines (Mandevilla splendens) for their ability to climb up trellises and garden walls quickly and easily. The climbing vine can cover a backyard, hiding eyesores quickly and beautifully.  Mandevilla species are native to the Southwestern US, Mexico, Central America, the West Indies, and South America, especially Brasil.

This beautiful plant is tougher than it looks, but it will not grow or bloom in temperatures lower than 50 degrees F.  However, the roots are still alive and the plant will grow back in spring. In climates lower than zone 8, the plant may not survive the winter. The solution is to grow the Mandevilla in a pot and bring it indoors when temps reach about  50 degrees F.
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How to Grow for Mandevilla Outdoors
Plant the Mandevilla in partial shade and well-drained soil.  Water the plant regularly, but allow the soil to dry between each irrigation.  Fertilize Mandevilla regularly during the growing season.  To maintain your young plant, train the vine to grow on a trellis.  Pinch or prune young plants to encourage bushy growth and to maintain the desired size and shape.

Mandevilla Indoor Growing 
Mandevilla is suitable for growing indoors year-round, but this tropical plant needs a warm, sunny location such as a south-facing window, especially in winter.  If you have a sunroom with light from all sites your Mandevilla might even bloom in winter.  But don’t force and fertilize it.  The plant needs a rest during wintertime.

Trim the plants back. This will decrease the leaf loss you see inside and help prime some new growth that's better adapted to indoor conditions.  A popular spray that is okay to use on a plant you are bringing indoors is Neem Oil.  Once a month bring your plant into the shower to apply some moisture onto the leaves.

Move the plant outdoors during the summer months. Water when the soil feels dry to the touch, then allow the pot to drain thoroughly. This includes indoor heating vents. Blasts of hot (or cold) air can cause yellow or brown foliage. Fertilize the plant regularly during spring and summer. Repot the Mandevilla plant to a slightly larger pot with a drainage hole every spring. Pinch wilted blooms regularly and prune the plant at least by half in late autumn.

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Never Ending Work on Lawns

A lawn is not only a resting place but can also be a lot of work. 
Too dry, too many weeds, ecologically questionable: the lawn causes many garden owners a big bellyache.  And worst of all: It is the dead part of any garden - no colorful flowers, no blooming shrubs, and no pollinating bees.

Following this blog over the years, you might have noticed that I am not a fan of lawns.  For me, lawns are expensive and involve lots of work - time you better spend relaxing in your garden.  Beautiful flower beds with lots of perennials and blooming shrubs are way more eco-friendly!  Lawns are dead! pieces of land in many aspects.  But most people don’t think about the environment and act very traditional, wanting to have an immaculate lawn.  So, here are some (video) tips on how to care for your turf:

The First Rule for Lawns:
Water, water, and water even more! The second rule is to de-thatch and weed, then mow your lawn. More after a rainy period - less in dry conditions. To ease the mowing task and also to avoid costly lawnmowing services, you might consider a lawnmower robot.  People use these robotic devices to vacuum their houses, clean the pool, so why not in the garden?

Robotic lawn mowers - Buyer's Guide
Expert advice on choosing the best robotic lawn mower for your garden, from the reviews team at BBC Gardeners' World Magazine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq7-8hSCS90
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Are ROBOT LAWN Mowers any Good?
See how my robotic lawn mower performed & what you need to know BEFORE considering buying one of these. Featuring the Worx Landroid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IQhM0dkiiE

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Best Robot Lawn Mowers in 2020
Comparisons are based on different sources of information, such as technical data, customer opinions, and our personal experience with the model. Due to the nature of our business, we get our hands on many different gardening tools and equipment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnadVE4Alpw

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De-Thatching
Spring de-thatching is a great way to help renovate your tired, ugly lawn.  Using a rake is hard work, and it needs one of these old-fashioned straight, metal rakes.  If you have a large lawn you can use a machine that can make the job so much easier than raking by hand. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea1wG2iLJFA

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How to Have Clean Edges Around Your Lawn
There is nothing that looks better than well taken care of natural edges in the lawn! However, the half-moon edger he uses in the video is very cheap and you should purchase a better one, with an ergonomic handle and a wider part to step on. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Qwf-rVDtVo

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Grow a Micro Clover Lawn
This is my favored way of having a beautiful lawn - and I am talking of many years of experience in my own garden: Micro Clover has many benefits over traditional grass, but can also work well with grass. It requires less water and is more sustainable than regular grass lawns and requires far less fertilizer.  As soon as the snow is melted, your lawn will show a nice green color, while your neighbor’s lawn is still brown and unsightly.  And you save lots of mowing time.  This video explains the benefits of micro clover, gives directions on how to seed a micro clover lawn AND overseed a grass lawn with micro clover.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq7-8hSCS90

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My Best Advice: Shrink Your Lawn
Those expanses of green turf take an enormous amount of resources.  Eliminate some of your lawns and create a more natural landscape.  You will ultimately use less water and reduce chemical use and save some money too.  As well, you will do less mowing and raking.

Moving away from water-guzzling and chemical-hungry lawns and cultivating yards that are diverse and self-regulating is a matter of mounting urgency.  As global temperatures rise and droughts drag on, the demands of turfgrass are likely to become untenable. 

Recommended reading:

https://www.nrdc.org/stories/more-sustainable-and-beautiful-alternatives-grass-lawn

https://www.cbc.ca/life/home/the-case-for-leaving-the-perfectly-manicured-lawn-behind-1.6449477

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Create a No-Maintenance Garden

Ten years ago I created a 36x24 flower garden bed for a friend. He had no clue of gardening or plants and even less time to do any planting or watering. He insisted to have a ‘no-maintenance’ flower bed - that I built on top of a former ugly patch of lawn.
The way I created it, this flower bed really became a ‘no-maintenance’ part of the front yard - and a fabulous one! Copy how I did it:

First, I edged the garden bed border eight inches deep and wide to avoid any grass to creep in. I collected cardboards on garbage day from all over the street.

Cardboard, Cardboard, and More Cardboard
In case you don’t have enough, just use very thick layers of newspaper (even rarer these days : )   Don’t leave any gaps between the boards, remove the plastic that holds the boxes together - and water the boards very thoroughly.  They should be more than soaking wet.  You don’t want to be that person chasing runaway cardboard caught by the wind.  The cardboard will suppress the weeds and eventually break down into the soil, adding useful organic matter.

Compost, Compost, and More Compost

A thick layer of compost went on the cardboard sheets, then the black garden soil, mixed with lots of composted manure. Chicken, cow, or sheep manure are all good for that matter. 

I must admit, I am a compost geek.  Even on road trips I collect organic stuff (Banana peels, fruit waste, tissues, eggshells, napkins, or teabags) and place them in paper bags to bring it home to my compost.  Composting organic kitchen and garden waste produces rich humus and improves the soil.  By composting you reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill sites, thus reducing greenhouse gases.  You will also save money and your health on chemical fertilizers.  Altogether were the compost, the soil and the manure ca. 15 inches thick when I started to plant flowers and small shrubs.

No-Maintenance Plants 

The planting bed was half in full sun and the other portion laid in dabbled half shade most of the day.  In the full sun part, I planted Rosa Rugosa, very hardy roses.  Also lots of Yarrow, Lavender, Salvia, and Purple Coneflowers - seven to nine plants of each, and each plant type in a group.  For lots of colors and blooms during the early fall time, I found a great offer for a six-feet Pee-Gee Hydrangea tree.  I also added lots of Daffodil and Hyacinth bulbs for next year's spring garden color.

Plants for Shade
The shaded part got a Rosa Glauca bush, a group of Salomon Seals, five different types of Hostas, and for early summer color several Astilbes in pink, white and red as well as three Japanese Anemones that would bloom in a lovely light pink the following year.  And certainly the same spring bulbs as on the sunny side.

Mulch Generously
Planting was done, so I watered again to have the area soaking wet and added a thick - ten-inch - layer of natural brown cedar mulch. If you add mulch, make sure that it is the ‘real’ thing.  Not these stained pieces of wood that are often sold in garden centers - avoid these in black, dark brown, or red! They contain chemicals (think Scott) that are poisonous for plants and you and will stain your clothes and garden gloves.

Mulched beds improve the appearance of any landscape.  But more importantly, generously topping the mulch protects the plants' root systems and adds nutrients to the soil.  Mulch slows soil erosion, retains moisture, evens out extreme temperatures in winter and summer, and successfully helps to prevent weeds.  You will spend less time weeding and watering your garden and more time enjoying it.

My friend never ever did anything on this flower bed. Once or twice a year I visited, mostly in summer or fall. I cut spent flower heads and maybe watered once or twice in summer. That was all that needed to be done. Now ten years later, the garden still looks fabulous!

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Video Tips on How to Create Flower Containers

Container Planting is one of my favored Garden joys. Each season new attractive flowers wait 

to be highlighted in a planter. You can even mix in some veggies! 

Use a taller plant in the middle, then three or five ‘fillers’ around it, plus several hanging plants. I don’t just tell - I'll show. So, get creative ideas with these videos:

How to Design a Beautiful Patio Container

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOvBsL2Lwss

Planting Fall Containers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC8hTnAy068

Fall Container Inspiration in Green & White

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yijpLFZo8YE

Just planted - silver-grey & yellow - needs to grow taller

More Fall Container Inspiration!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGEmuK8a2go

How to Create a Gorgeous Fall Planter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftgIsfidfRk

Just planted this in early spring - needs to grow taller
in summer the sweet potato vine grows down three feet

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… and here are some fabulous ideas for Winter containers:

Planting Up Containers that Will Take You Through Winter! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_uQhrPjsEc

Wintering Plants in Containers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woeqve1yS64

Happy Container Planting -
Enjoy them year-round!

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How to Care for Long-Blooming Roses

Roses, besides being magnificent flowers, have a long history. The oldest rose planted today was in existence some 3,000 years ago according to The Old Farmers Almanac.

Roses crave sunlight and generous helpings of food and water. In most climates, provide at least six hours of sunlight per day. If you live in a very hot climate, plant them where they are shaded from the hot afternoon sun. When watering, water at the base of the plant - water the soil, never pour it over the plant!  Provide at least an inch or two of water per week.  Natural cedar mulch helps to retain moisture in the soil and evens out temperatures in winter as well as on hot summer days.

Coffee Grounds
The reason coffee grounds are so good for rose bushes is because of their high nitrogen content. Roses need neutral to acidic soil, and if you add coffee grounds, it will help take the pH from neutral to acidic. ... Plus, astonishingly as it may seem, many bugs and pests are repelled by coffee grounds.

When to Plant Roses
Bare-root roses: Plant in late autumn at leaf fall, and from late winter to early spring, before growth resumes. Avoid planting in the middle of winter when the ground is frozen. Container-grown roses: Plant all year round, provided the ground is neither frozen, nor dry. Plant roses in rich, well-draining soil. When planting, mix organic matter, such as compost or ground bark, into excavated soil you'll use to backfill the planting hole.


Rose Pruning
Use very sharp rose scissors. If the machine does not cut properly, there is a risk of bruising, the cutting point is not clean and is a target for disease.

An old, slightly neglected bed rose can be shortened more radically, which means "rejuvenating", a young climbing rose just wants to be cleaned out.

Cut all old, dead, and very weak shoots - regardless of the type of rose. Men tend to cut a lot, women usually cut far too little : )

Look for an outward-facing eye, about 20 to 60 centimeters above the ground, place scissors in a fourth-degree angle just above it, and cut off smoothly.

Take a step back and examine your work.  Be stern with yourself and rework.  Ten centimeters more might still work. If you feel that you have cut too much off, it is probably just right.  You can't cut off too much.

Every five years even the climbing rose can tolerate an incision to rejuvenate.  Unlike haircutting, shortening the shoots stimulates growth.  Because roses only bloom on new wood, this is also good for the flowering.  Only if you cut, can the rose bloom again, the cut gives it vitality.

Otherwise, each rose is pruned differently: The shrub roses should grow bushy, the noble rose has only one flower per stem, the bed rose looks nicer if it also bears flowers on the lower levels.  Bed roses don't not have too much-lignified stems, so it must be pruned at the bottom.

You should also avoid spraying, for example, if one plant has developed rust, you must take care that it does not infect the others.  To prevent this, cut off all infested leaves, even a radical cut can be advisable.

Black Spots and Rust: 
I have had the best experience with a simple household remedy:
I bought a big bag of cornflour, lightly sprayed the rose with water, and then sprinkled the cornflour all over the plant.  Two days later the procedure again and the rose was free of the ugly spots.

The annual rose pruning should be done in spring, to avoid severe frost.  Once the forsythia has withered, is the best time.  In autumn you can do a slight pruning, then everything looks a bit tidier - but you also would miss the pretty rose hips.

The tart reddish-orange hips of rugosa rose hips are used for jams, jellies, syrups, pies, teas, and wine. Check out our Rose Hip Jam recipe.  Rose petals are edible and can be tossed into salads for color, candied to decorate cakes, or distilled to make rose water.


See videos about pruning roses:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6la_YikkQc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN3G-wpWtFY

Like to have more rose plants?
Propagation - How to grow roses from cuttings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw4d-s9N8zE

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Gardens of Horror

Recently I saw a documentary about the "Gardens of Horror" where house owners cover their front yard complete with small stones. Shocking pictures for a nature lover and garden designer! 

A Complete Garden of Stones?
They are often touted as the easiest way to maintain a garden from sellers of these stones and rocks.  Young families buying a property with a garden for the first time are quickly drawn to this "design" - even it is not cheap to install.

Why the strictly-cut Taxus, why the gravel garden that welcomes the returning person in his suburban settlement in the evening?  There is probably longing for control: If I am pushed and controlled at work during the day - in my garden I decide what grows and what doesn't.  An illusion - and by the way: The gravel garden will take care of itself.  After a year or two, people will see dandelions boring their way through the gravel.  And then in fall, leaves from neighboring trees that will stick between the stones, pioneer plants like birches, for example, that the wind blows in: Wait and see.

What are the Reasons for This?
In inner-city locations, professional activity usually stands in the way of the hobby of gardening.  Even though gardening is a soothing and rewarding hobby.  Here it is less a question of visual or aesthetic reasons than of the time factor.  But what are folks doing with the time they gain?  Watching Netflix I assume.

More Weeds - More Work!
Erroneously, rockeries seem to require the least maintenance, but this is not true.  They only look good for the first month after installation... But after a short time, the first weeds appear - which can hardly be removed because the tiny roots clinch to the plastic foil underneath the stones.  This plastic foil is touted by the garden centers as "keeping the weeds underneath from sprouting - which is not true.  The majority of weeds are blowing in by the wind or are carried by birds.  They then settle on the stones, creep between them, and happily grow and seeds, bringing even more weeds to life. In autumn, leaves from the surrounding area fly between the stones and can only be removed individually with great effort. So, no little bit of labor-saving!

What Effect do Rock Gardens Have on the Microclimate?
Besides the visual "greying" of the cities, rockeries have very negative effects on the microclimate:  Due to the lack of greenery and trees, the stones heat up in summer and give off heat to the surroundings.  Since the stones also store the heat, the garden or the soil cannot cool down even at night.  Water-impermeable gravel beds prevent rainwater from seeping into the ground and thus promote the drying out of the soil.

Negative Effects on Flora and Fauna
Due to the lack of vegetation, insects, birds, and other animals have a harder time finding food and habitat.  Of course, there are also rockeries that take these aspects into account, but they are rather the exception.  Individual stones in the garden between the trees, bushes, and flowers look attractive.  But a whole front garden crammed with stones...

A property with a normally laid out front garden sells better, as the buyer does not have to expect large additional costs for the redesign.  In contrast, rock gardens can only be re-naturalized with great effort and corresponding costs - these costs must be taken into account by the buyer when purchasing.

Rock gardens are not good for the air quality or the vegetation and they are at the expense of nature. In the end, they have a negative influence on our quality of life.

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Is Your Garden in Survival Mode?

Visiting gardens of friends last month I was shocked how dry their garden beds were. Spring flowers were already starting to wilt before they would bloom...  When I mentioned it to them they answered totally surprised: "Why water during cool spring weather?" I grabbed a garden tool to dig into the compact soil - and showed them that it was totally dry - down to at least 10 inches. 

Why Start Watering in Early Spring
Much of the snow in Spring does not melt, but rather evaporate.  That means the garden soil is not thoroughly moistened.  Often the air is rather dry during the Spring months.  For example, in the Ottawa, Canada, area the humidity level was for almost two months (April and May of this year) well under 50%, often under 40%.  Spring is the time when plants start to build new roots, buds, leaves, and flowers - in one word the most important time of the year.  And watering then as important as it is in the hottest summer months.

Additionally, many flower beds are in the vicinity or even under huge trees. Feeder roots of these trees are near the surface and they "steal" moisture that flowers and shrubs then are missing.  Even if it rains, large trees prevent the water to reach thirsty soil underneath.

Your Garden Soil
Easily test if the soil needs to be watered: Grab a handful of the soil, press it into a ball, and then open your hand. If the ball stays, your soil is fine. But if the ball falls apart or cannot even be built, waste no time to thoroughly water.

Before we go into the watering tips, let me talk about your soil: Healthy, well-composted soil retains moisture.  Add composted chicken, cow, or sheep manure - in case you don't make your own garden compost.  And mulch heavily with natural cedar mulch.  This doesn't only keep the weeds at bay, evens out temperatures, but also holds the soil underneath moist. 


Don't Drink for Two Weeks?
Would you be still alive?  Most likely you wouldn't live anymore after a couple of days... But then, why would anyone not water their plants for two months? 

I saw this first-hand at a garden in which three lilac bushes have been planted last year. They bloomed beautifully by then - but were totally dead last week (in early June).  This year's leaf and flower buds were totally dried out.  Asking the garden owner how often he had watered the lilacs this spring, he answered: "Not yet, it wasn't really hot so far".  I was stunned by his answer... Well, it's his garden!

How Often to Water Your Plants?

In the flower bed, two watering sessions per week are usually sufficient: better to water less often but with plenty of water rather than a little water often.  Should the temperatures climb over 80 degrees F, water at least three times per week.  Newly planted flowers need to be watered every day during the first two weeks after planting. The same for flowers in window boxes or small containers.

Best to water early in the morning before the sun rises. When you water cooled soil, less water evaporates than it would on hot soil during the day.

Don't water in the evening and keep leaves and blooms dry to avoid diseases.  Wet leaves become diseased leaves. Kept wet overnight, leaf-mold diseases may result.
Suitable watering means that the water must sufficiently reach the roots.  Water the soil around the plants, not overhead the flowers! Water evenly around the plant for a balanced well-developed root system.  Always watering at only one root point leads to one-sided root growth and thereby to poorer nutrient absorption in the soil. Therefore, always water around the plant.


Watering Made Easy

Are you weary of dragging a heavy garden hose through your property?  No question, it's no fun and I totally agree with you!  However, for a number of years, there are light-weight garden hoses available that are expanding (and shrinking after you turn off the water).  For me, it’s the perfect garden hose: extremely light-weight and 100 ft long. Featherlight: I could carry the complete hose with one small finger.

This hose expands 3 times its length when water pressure is on.  It contracts to its original length when pressure is off.  And best of all, it never tangles, twists or kinks, and is easy to store in small places.

Should you not have enough time in your busy life, a sprinkler to water the garden is better than nothing. A sprinkler with a built-in mechanical timer lets you leave for work in the morning but stops the watering at the time you have chosen. There are also digital timers available - you don't even need to go out in the garden. They start at the set time without your help.

Gardeners can also use water-saving irrigation methods e.g. with a drip automatic irrigation system using moisture sensors – in the flower bed, on the balcony, and on the lawn.  However, not easy to install in an old, established garden or with lots of trees.
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Conclusion:
There is really no point in letting your garden plants suffer! These days it is easy and fast to irrigate your garden beds, shrubs, and trees.  With the right equipment, you don't have to lift a finger to keep your plants safe and healthy!  No excuses!

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