Best gardening year ever!!!!!
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
What a gorgeous weekend! No matter how old I become, its weekends like this that regenerate me and my spirits from the doldrums of winter. You can feel the rite of spring in the soft breeze and smell the soil warming up from the heat of the sun. I love spring! I know its not official yet, and we may see a few more chilly days, but these last few days will tie me over until that special day arrives.
This kind of weekend - and soon to be arrival of the Chatham Home and Garden Show - just reinforced my charter, as it does every year, to make this year the best gardening year ever. How about you? This is the time to get that journal out which we talked about last December, and review what your plans are for your 2010 gardens.
Remember the plants you wanted to get for that special area this year, or the ones you were going to move? There will be lots of fine ideas at the home show and it will be great to see all the displays that our local area businesses have to offer. Now is the time to talk over your plans for the garden with an expert before it really starts to get busy. I suspect that Community in Blooms will have a booth there packed with brochures and pictures that highlighted the reason Chatham-Kent was awarded the prestigious 5 blooms last year and are looking forward to a repeat performance this year. So dont miss the Chatham Home and Garden show this weekend!
This kind of weather always accelerates the itch to get out into the garden, but we do have to be careful as we can sometimes do more damage than good.
Its a bit early for pruning roses and such, but the grasses are fair game. You can cut down your grasses to about 3 inches from the ground now. Ill be cleaning up any sedums heads I kept up for the winter. I have been able to pick up a few mushy hosta leaves that I missed last fall and had since been covered with snow and there were a few twigs and other debris that accumulated on the lawn over the winter. Just be careful not to trample too much on the thawing lawns or mulched gardens. Some ornamental fruit trees also got a look over from me, and I will be more earnest in pruning them in the weeks ahead.
Im also taking a look at the pots/containers that I have stored in the garage. There are grasses, sedums, small trees, bergenias and several other perennials in there. It may be a tad early to think about putting them outside, but this may be a good time to give them a bit of water and see how they wintered over.
If the weather keeps improving and we see more days nearing 10 degrees Celsius, I may start placing them outside up against an east wall. Ill report back to you in a few weeks as to whether that was a good idea or not.
One of those planters in the garage holds a great little plant that gave me the inspiration for my Plant of the Week.
Its in a fanciful copper sun type planter and was stored in a cardboard box against the inside wall of the garage all winter. I would see it everyday and it is just one of several garage planters that held evergreen plants and give me the hope of spring returning through those long winter days.
Its English ivy thats been in this whimsical container for about 5 years now and it had remained a lovely deep green all winter long. The leaves had also remained amazingly soft to the touch.
It is an extremely hardy plant and I have not had problems with pests or diseases from the day I planted it. I try to maintain its vine nature to 8 to 10 inches as this is more of a table planter than a hanging one. You can see it in the middle of the bench in the attached photo.
So for putting a smile on my face all winter long English Ivy you are my Plant of the Week!
Thats it for now enjoy and Happy Gardening!
Terri Dent is home grown from Chatham-Kent. Her roots began on a farm in Raleigh Township. She moved to the big city of Chatham when she married in 1971 but the love of the land and nature has always remained in her blood. Her big push into horticulture started in the 80's. She and husband Ron (with tender persuasion) decided to turn their suburban plot - which their house laid on, into something more than a patch of grass. Through numerous gardening and horticultural courses, Terri harnessed the knowledge to move full steam ahead and hasn't looked back. She has a Diploma in Garden and Landscape Design and believes continuous education is a must in the horticultural world. Terri was instrumental in starting up Garden Tours in Chatham and has won numerous local and regional gardening awards. The Dent's garden has been published in several magazines and is listed as a the number one top area garden in the Ontario's Great Gardens to Visit book authored by a Patricia Singer of Toronto. Terri's past speaking engagements have been to business, church groups, libraries and Horticultural Societies. Terri presently sits on the Board of Directors for the Blenheim-Harwich Horticultural Society.
