Planting Spring Bulbs: The Popular Heralds of Spring

 

Snowdrops and crocuses are certainly among the best-known early bloomers.  But primroses, daffodils, anemones, hyacinths, ornamental leeks, and tulips are also attractive species among the harbingers of spring.

The ideal time: As a rule, the early bloomers are planted in autumn.  Around October/November, depending on location is a good time for almost all early bloomers.  If you have missed this time, you can still try your luck at the beginning of the year if the winter is not too severe.  As soon as a few frost-free days are forecast, plant the early bloomers.

The ideal location: The suitable location is completely different depending on the type of flower.  Tulips, for example, prefer sunny spots and can cope very well with a little more dryness.  Snowdrops, on the other hand, like to stand in shady places, such as along walls or under deciduous trees.  Just like daffodils, they need slightly moist soil.

Planting Early Bloomers - the Best Tips

• Place the bulbs about ten to twelve centimetres deep in the ground.  A bulb planter is very helpful when planting bulbs.  Especially if you want to plant a lot of early bloomers.
• Leave a space of about 7 to 10 centimetres between the individual bulbs, depending on the type of plant.
• If the bulbs have already been planted, do not dig them in completely, but leave them about two to three centimetres out of the ground.
• Plant the bulbs in tubs or pots and keep the soil slightly moist.  Make sure that the soil does not become waterlogged and protect the bulbs from frost.
• After you have planted the bulbs in the garden, you do not need to worry about anything else.
• Fertilize the early flowering bulbs as soon as the first leaves appear.

Once you have planted the early flowering bulbs in the ground, most species will later reproduce on their own.  But of course, you can also propagate early bloomers like snowdrops yourself.

The Importance of Crocuses

The first crocuses bloom between February and March.  The mostly purple flowers form colourful spots in the snow and herald the beginning of spring.  But crocuses carry a number of other meanings:

The crocus is an iris plant that grows in gardens, in meadows or in the mountains.  Its flowers are usually purple, but there are also yellow or white crocuses.

Crocuses have been around since ancient times.  At that time, the spring-flowering plants were regarded as a sign of hope for supernatural life and symbolised eternal youth.  They were therefore planted on the graves of the deceased.

In addition, crocuses stood for passionate love in ancient times. The saffron crocus in particular was used to prepare a love potion that was drizzled on the beds of newly married couples.

Saffron crocuses are also used as a spice.  They are considered aphrodisiacs.  Since saffron was also used to dye royal robes, for example, they were an expensive commodity.

Saffron crocuses were also a valued medicinal plant against inflammations, eye infections, mood swings and circulatory problems.

Propagating Snowdrops by Seeds

Once you have planted snowdrops, it is usually enough to let nature take its course.  The magic word is myrmecochory.  After the ovary has burst open, the ants pick up the seed to eat the nutritive body and thus spread the seed. 

As convenient as natural flower propagation is, it has the disadvantage that you have no influence on where the snowdrops grow later.  If you want to influence where the snowdrops later sprout in your garden, you have to distribute the seed yourself. The seed is taken from the ovary of the snowdrop.  You can tell when the ovary is mature and the seed is ready to be taken by looking at the downward-sloping flower stalk. Before you plant the seed in the soil in autumn, store it in a cool and dry place. 

Propagating Snowdrops by Dividing them

Snowdrops look pretty and are also quite undemanding flowers.  However, the soil should be as humus-rich and water-permeable as possible.  In March, when the snowdrops are wilting, dig up the clumps.  The clusters consist of mother and daughter bulbs.  After you have separated the bulbs from each other, put them back into the soil immediately so that they do not dry out.

The same method can be used to propagate Tulips or Daffodils, but wait until their leaves are yellow in late spring or early summer.

Planting Spring bulbs now will bring you early color and joyful blooms  - before everything else shows up in your garden. Nothing beats the first spring show of brilliant yellow Daffodils and Crocuses in all colors. They are really eye-catching!

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Blooming Fences - Instead of Ugly Cedar Hedges

 

Instead of these ugly, dark cedar “fences” that are popular in Canada, homeowners could as well plant colorful blooming shrubs that are attractive throughout the seasons - even to bees. While cedars are not only costly to purchase and plant, they require constant trimming throughout their lives. Often the hedge trimmers trample through flower beds and do not always remove down-fallen clippings so it needs additional raking and pick-up.

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Fall is Planting Time

On the other hand, shrubs like Weigelia, Rosa Glauca, Kerria Japonica, Quince, Berberis Rose Glow, Hydrangeas, or Philadelphus only need a little bit of trimming every other year - an easy task for garden owners.  No ladder is necessary!  However, no matter which shrubs you choose as a hedge, they all need to be watered when there is a lack of rain - even cedar hedges suffer in dry spells.

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My Favoured BLOOMING SHRUBS around the property:

Quince - follows soon after with pink/salmon-color blooms
https://www.monrovia.com/be-inspired/flowering-quince-for-early-spring-blooms.html

Dwarf Pink Bloomerang Lilac - much longer blooming than average Lilac

https://www.provenwinners.com/plants/syringa/bloomerang-dwarf-pink-reblooming-lilac-syringa-x

Rosa Glauca - loves shade, rare for a rose, and has blue-green leaves

https://www.greatplantpicks.org/plantlists/view/1348

Kerria Japonica - brightens shade spots with its abundance of yellow blooms

https://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheet/japanese-kerria/

Philadelphus - blooms white in summer and has a pleasant fragrance 
https://www.gardenia.net/plant/philadelphus-avalanche-mock-orange

The Best Fence You Could Imagine ...

Berberis Rose Glow - shows only tiny, insignificant blooms, but the beautiful maroon leaves are colorful almost all year round.  It also creates a kind of “wall” due to its many thorns.  No one would even try to brush through ...

http://search.millcreeknursery.ca/11050005/Plant/628/Rose_Glow__Barberry/

https://www.provenwinners.com/plants/berberis/sunjoy-neo-barberry-berberis-thunbergii

https://www.gardenia.net/plant/berberis-thunbergii-atropurpurea-rose-glow

Weigela Spilled Wine

https://www.provenwinners.com/plants/weigela/spilled-wine-weigela-florida

Kerria Japonica 

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/shrubs/japanese-kerria/growing-japanese-kerria.htm

 

Philadelphus

https://www.provenwinners.com/plants/philadelphus/illuminati-arch-mockorange-philadelphus-coronarius

Quince

https://homeguides.sfgate.com/growing-conditions-flowering-quince-bush-58384.html

https://www.gardenista.com/posts/gardening-101-flowering-quince-chaenomeles-speciosa-plant-growing-guide/

Dwarf Pink Bloomerang Lilac

https://www.provenwinners.com/plants/syringa/bloomerang-dwarf-pink-reblooming-lilac-syringa-x

Better enclose your yard with flowering hedges instead of fences to add color, texture, and even fragrance to your garden space. 

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See also: 
https://garden-dream.blogspot.com/2018/05/3-great-shrubs-instead-of-fence.html

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Fall Garden Pleasures & Chores

 

Beautiful blooms, rich foliage, and dramatic seed heads abound. Dozens of bees are cruising around blooming Sedums, Japanese Anemones are showing off their beauty, and Hydrangeas are blooming even in shaded parts of the garden. Ornamental grasses are more attractive than in summer, Clematis might bloom for a second time and some Roses are still providing spectacular colors well into Fall. In a few weeks it will all be gone, so take some time to enjoy the warm October afternoons outdoors in your glorious fall garden!

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Bring Indoor Plants In

The end of October (or early November) is then filled with fall garden chores - from cutting back dying perennials, to planting bulbs and preparing the indoor plants for their return back into the house.  Potted plants need to be re-potted especially the tropicals in outdoor containers.  Add new potting mix and increase the pot by one size to keep them happy all winter.  This will be the last feeding until March. Make sure to check for any critters and pests before bringing anything inside, and consider applying insecticidal soap to the soil after re-potting (it leaches down into the new pot).  You can also hang sticky pads on them to catch tiny flies.

Leaves

Remove leaves from your lawn, or otherwise the grass underneath can rot.  But do it NOT with leaf vacuums or leaf blowers.  Experts advise against using leaf vacuums or leafblowers.  Leafblowers are a disaster for the environment.  They destroy the upper layer of the earth and with it many organisms that try to live there.  Apart from the noise, devices with combustion engines emit harmful exhaust gases such as carbon, nitrogen oxides, and carbon monoxide. Also, small animals are literally chopped up when using suction devices.

Lawns

White grubs are a common turf and lawn pest, and beneficial nematodes can be a very effective (and safe!) control.  However, it is important to treat at the right time of year, based on the white grubs’ life cycle, to ensure good control.  Treating them in early fall is ideal, as that is when the smaller, young grubs are most susceptible to nematodes.  Heteromask is a preferred product against white grubs, but Scanmask is also effective.  Focus treatment on sunny areas of your lawn/turf or on any areas that show signs of grub damage.  Heteromask comes in a spray formulation, and you can use the Nema-Jet, a hose-end sprayer or a watering can (for smaller areas) to apply

Lawns are hungry as well. Early October is the time for your second application of fertilizer with a “winterizer” type on the label, one with an NPK (nitrogen/phosphorous/potassium) of around 28-0-14.

You should mow your lawn for the last time this year by the end of November at the latest - after that there's no point, as you may even harm it if it has to survive the winter after being shorn too short. It's best to set your lawn mower higher so that your lawn can catch enough sunlight even in the cold season and doesn't give uninvited guests such as moss a chance to grow in.

Rake the leaves from the paths into the beds on the left and right - but not higher than 3 inches.  Mark where you have plants to avoid trampling on them in early spring.  The layer of leaves provides frost protection for the plants in winter and also attracts blackbirds, for example, which pick pests out of the beds.  Leaves also help plant growth in the long term.  The leaves gradually decompose and become valuable fertilizer and soil.  Nature has the very best recycling system.  It's unbeatable!

You can also cover flower and vegetable beds with fresh compost: It can mature over the winter and provides the plants with an ideal breeding ground when they develop new shoots in the spring.

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Hedges & Shrubs

In gardens and parks, densely growing shrubs and hedges create visual accents.  For property owners, especially those who live directly on a street, hedges serve primarily as privacy screens.  But hedges are not an attractive substitute for a fence, they serve as a habitat for many animals.  For this reason, there are a few things to keep in mind when trimming hedges:

Hedges should only be trimmed between October and the end of February.  Between March and September, some native bird species use the densely growing hedge plants as a shelter to first build a nest undisturbed by humans and predators and later raise their young ones in it.  However, as soon as the first strong frost sets in, it is important to stop pruning your trees and shrubs, as the cuts will no longer close. 

Usually, hedges are cut with hedge shears.  The fastest and most efficient way is to use the electric version.  A little more practical, but also a few dollars more expensive, are models that are powered by a battery.  Hedges should be cut conically, a little narrower towards the top.  The reason is quite simple: The lower branches get much less light with a straight cut.  In the worst case, they become bare or stunted.  That's why the base of any hedge should be about 20 inches wider than the top.  Donate an additional layer of mulch to the soil under the hedge.  This favors the nutrient balance and pleases numerous microorganisms.

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No Need to Cut Roses in Fall

Older varieties of roses lay the flower buds already in the previous year and then unfold all their beauty only once - in early summer.  The problem is that the new shoots do not produce new flowers in the same year.  This means that they will not bear a single flower in summer if they are pruned as radically as roses that bloom more often.  Tip: Thin out such roses only slightly in spring so that the crown does not become too dense.

Prune Roses in Spring:

Be patient and wait to prune roses until no more heavy (night) frosts are expected.  So, about after the forsythia bush flowers have faded.  The 'eyes', i.e. the places where a rose can form side shoots, play an important role when pruning roses.  If you cut the shoot too close over an eye or side shoot, they could dry out.  What would be left behind - instead of a fragrant flower - would be an unsightly stub.  Therefore, place the scissors about five millimeters above the uppermost eye and cut the shoot at a slight downward angle.  This prevents water from collecting, which would provide a perfect breeding ground for pathogens.

For shrub roses, cut back to no more than half the shoot length.  Otherwise, long and unstable shoots will develop.  The procedure is different again for climbing roses.  Here, the previous year's shoots remain uncut and are only slightly thinned out. 

It’s also time to plant lots of bulbs for spectacular spring blooming.  Pay attention to the planting depth as listed on the packages.  Dividing perennials is a great way to make your beds fuller.  Lift plants carefully from the hole and shake off excess soil.  Remove any dead stems and foliage.  Separate the root system in half down from the middle, using two garden spades or forks or a sharp knife.  Replant in a new hole with fresh soil and water thoroughly.  If there is no rain during the next days, water these 'new' plants at least three times a week.

Keep pulling up the summer veggies as they ripen, and make room for fall crops, such as turnips, beets, onions, spinach, or Brussels sprouts.  Composting summer plants will improve your soil next spring.

Read more: 

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/bulbs/bgen/bulbs-for-shade-gardens.htm

https://biologicco.wpengine.com/blog/faq-how-to-kill-white-grubs-with-nematodes/

https://www.cbc.ca/life/home/how-to-prepare-your-garden-for-winter-1.6623540

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/25/1131114849/leaves-fall-autumn-compost-mulch-grass-lawn-nutrients

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Plants That are Thriving in Shade

 

Even if your garden is mostly shady, you still can fill it with color. Many spring bulbs are ideal for planting in shady areas at the base of shrubs, beneath large shade trees, and along woodland paths. At this time of the year, the trees have no leaves yet.  They are the earliest bulbs to bloom and the first food for bees: Snowdrops, Anemones, Fritillaria, Crocus, Narcissus, or Scilla are the first blooms in your garden.  But don't forget to plant them in the fall!  Other spring flowers such as Primula, Pulmonaria, Bleeding Heart, Foamflower, Spiderwort, Aquilegia, or Obelia.

Quite a few plants are thriving in shade gardens from early summer into fall.  Some are colorful, some are white-blooming, and some have attractive silver leaves.  However, flowering shrubs bloom best with some sun (preferably in the morning because the hot afternoon sun isn't a friend to shade lovers). And if you're planting shrubs or perennials, which come back every year, make sure they are suited to your hardiness zone. 

Here is a selection of flowers that don't mind shade to plant this early fall or next spring - beside begonias, pansies, or impatiens:

Astranti: the Most Beautiful Shade Perennial You’ve Never Heard Of 

https://laidbackgardener.blog/2017/08/01/astrantia-the-most-beautiful-perennial-youve-never-heard-of/

https://seedterra.com/astrantia-masterwort-purple-seeds-astrantia-major/

Indian Pink (Spigelia marilandica)

https://savvygardening.com/shade-loving-perennial-flowers/

Brunnera Macrophylla: Silver Leaf Plant for Shade 

https://www.gardenia.net/plant/brunnera-macrophylla-looking-glass-siberian-bugloss

https://www.fromhousetohome.com/garden/compact-shade-plants/

https://www.gardenia.net/plant-variety/brunnera-macrophylla-siberian-bugloss

Switch Grass

https://www.bluestem.ca/panicum-rotstrahlbusch.htm

Japanese Painted Fern

https://www.thespruce.com/how-to-grow-and-care-for-japanese-painted-ferns-4691739

Goatsbeard

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/flowers/goats-beard/goats-beard-plant-info.htm

Astilbe

https://www.gardendesign.com/plants/astilbe.html

Variegated Solomon’s Seal

https://www.gardenista.com/posts/gardening-101-solomons-seal/

Hardy Cyclamen: My Favored Fall Shade Plants

https://garden-dream.blogspot.com/2021/09/hardy-cyclamen-becoming-my-favored-fall.html

Ligularia

https://www.gardenia.net/plant/ligularia-dentata-desdemona

Heuchera in all Colors: yellow, copper, or maroon

https://www.provenwinners.com/learn/heuchera

Hostas in blue-green, grey, or yellow - avoid the boring green ones...

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/foliage/hosta/growing-hosta-plants.htm

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As you can see, there are dozens and dozens of flowering blooms that gardeners can plant in the shade. Many people think that if they have a shady garden they can’t grow flowers. Nothing could be further from the truth! If you have a garden space with less than full sun, you can still have a beautiful flower garden.

What to Grow in Full-sun Areas

 

Sunny spots can host a wide array of plants.  With the right mix of sun-loving perennials, you can savor seasonal color from summer to fall frost.  Treat yourself to a yard full of color.   Designing a garden is easy when you are able to work with full sun perennials.

When choosing plants for areas with full sun, it’s generally better to stick with native plantings whenever possible.  Many full sun plants are also tolerant of drought and arid conditions, making them ideal for potted environments too.

Buying new perennials in a drought and planting them in the garden makes little sense, as they need milder temperatures to become established first.  So, you should wait until the heat wave is over, or your new purchases will die right before your eyes.  Buy plants in the fall or spring that are hardy and have plenty of time to grow strong by summer next year.

Winter-hardy succulents like sedum, stonecrop, and houseleek are optimal for dry, sunny gardens. Houseleek is even called "sempervivum," meaning "always lives," in Latin.  Succulents have the special advantage that it's almost ridiculously easy to grow from cuttings.  This way you have three times as many plants in two to three years without spending a penny extra.

Woody Mediterranean perennials and herbs such as lavender, rosemary, thyme, sage, and oregano are also excellent and very bee-friendly.  In dry gardens, all kinds of iris, yarrow, and purple coneflowers feel at home.  They tolerate dry soils well and have beautiful colorful flowers.  The sunniest flower of all, sunflowers, need 6 - 8 hours of full sun.

Happy Gardening

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Skip the Lawn: Diverse and Hands-off Gardening

 

Lawns are Attractive Only to Weeds… 

I have never met a garden owner who was happy with their lawn.  They all complain about the work, the watering, weeding, fertilizing, and expensive lawnmowers.  And point out ground-covering plantains, crabgrass, creeping charlie, dandelions, and other nasty weeds. Not to mention grubs or moles that are destroying the lawn.

Perfectly manicured lawns are a thing of the past!  Who needs turf around the house that requires frequent mowing, fertilizing, raking, aerating, watering, and lots of pesticides?  Doing all this work (or paying someone for it) is not worth the effort.  Not to speak about the cost of labor, material, and most of all: the environmental impact. 

Ecological Desert

CBC wrote in an article recently: "The case for leaving the perfectly manicured lawn behind. North Americans have had a longstanding love affair with crisp blades of grass and the perfectly manicured lawns we shape them into. The tidy turf tradition isn't homegrown though: the concept was hauled across the Atlantic by colonists who maintained lawns in Europe going back to the 17th or 18th century. The growth became a staple of the leisure class who reveled in lawn games like croquet and tennis and turned it into a status symbol since bringing neatness to nature's chaos required deep pockets. And so, keeping up with the trim-turfed Joneses began.

Though its shorn blades are a bare-footer's dream and the smell of it freshly cut may be inseparable from summer nostalgia for many, a pristine lawn comes with a whole whack of taxing environmental impacts - and high maintenance cost."

Lawns are a Dead Part of Your Garden

Insects that are necessary to pollinate vegetables, flowers, fruit, and other crops cannot find anything in lawns, but the odd dandelion bloom. Bees and butterflies are not finding any wood in the sea of grass blades.

Fertilizers and pesticides can create runoff and pollute lakes and reservoirs. Nitrogen and phosphorus and other chemicals contained in these products can lead to oxygen-choking, overgrowth of algae and other plants - and kill small animals.

The fertilizers and pesticides we put on lawns can create runoff that pollutes surrounding bodies of water. In surface waters like lakes and reservoirs, the nitrogen and phosphorus contained in these products can lead to oxygen-choking, light-masking overgrowth of algae and other plants. 

The monoculture, free of wildflowers, shrubs, dead wood, and trees, is also not ideal for wildlife.  It provides neither shelter nor nutrition for flittering pollinators like bees, butterflies, and birds that help plants reproduce, creating more vegetation — our food.

Lawns also require a huge amount of water to maintain, drinking water that can be better used.  This obscene amount of drinking water onto our lawns makes them green because they're the wrong species for our climate.  Turf spends a large chunk of the summer on "life support," browning and dying in peak season because the grass isn't living in its ideal climate.  

Kentucky bluegrass is a species brought over by colonists from much wetter and cloudier areas, such as the UK or Ireland.  The same with dandelions: Europeans brought over dandelions because they were medicinal and useful, they ate the greens, roasted the roots, and made tea.

Smart: Growing Native Plants due to Raising Water Costs

Water-wise landscaping, a xeriscaped yard has the potential to cut watering at least in half - and it looks much prettier.  Start by digging out a part of the lawn and planting drought-tolerant shrubs and flowers.  You even don’t need to dig out the lawn, just cover it with wet cardboard in the fall, and secure this with a couple of big rocks. 

Comes spring, place good garden soil mixed with compost or composted manure, at least 1 foot high.  Plant sedums, Russian stonecrops, salvia, Santolina, sunflowers, irises, lavender, ornamental pink Muhly grass, rudbeckia, coreopsis, milkweed (especially for butterflies), yarrow, lupine, coneflowers, and in shade parts aruncus plants or hostas of a variety of leaf colors. Then mulch this new flower bed well.

Blooming Shrubs

Small shrubs that need water only a short period after planting are wild roses rosa rugosa), burning bush, sea buckthorn, privet, beauty bush, rose glow barberry, forsythia, or butterfly bush, just to name a few.  A little bit of blooming is all maintenance they need once a year. 

Mulch the ground well and the area around the shrubs will be weed-free.

Ornamental Grasses

Jodi Delong wrote in an article in Saltscapes: "Like many gardeners, I evolved into a love affair with ornamental grasses, and now I can’t imagine a garden without them. Oh, for sure, in the spring they don’t look like anything but a bunch of dead sticks, but as we roll into summer and autumn, they take on delightful texture, and make gorgeous sounds as the wind whispers through them…

And many produce elegant and long-lasting flower heads that are eye-catching.  As an added bonus, many types of grass have interesting colors throughout the season—not just green!—and great fall/winter colors, too. What’s not to love?

Most of these ornamental grasses offer more than ornamental value.  If you want to create a relatively quick screen to block the view of an unsightly fence or just to add some privacy to your yard, some grasses get quite large and showy.  Most importantly for many gardeners, they are relatively problem/pest free.  Best of all, deer do not like the majority of grasses: their tough, sharp leaves (blades) aren’t at all appetizing to Bambi.

Another idea, in case you want to keep your lawn, is to over-seed it with short-growing clover.  The benefits?  You will never have to mow again and your lawn is always green - even through a drought.  

Lawns are an anomaly.  And they may no longer fit the realities of the world we live in.  In today’s world, we worry so much about environmental issues, it is satisfying to have something that's really under our control - our gardens.

https://www.epicgardening.com/xeriscape-plants/

https://www.pinterest.ca/rvs11/drought-tolerant-plants-zone-4/

https://www.naturehills.com/blog/post/drought-tolerant-plants-for-the-landscape

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/anthropology-in-practice/the-american-obsession-with-lawns/

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