From Mélie’s Garden
April has always been the start of the gardening year for me. It is a good month to get ahead on chores before everything starts to grow very quickly in May.
I start with cleaning up my flower beds and removing any debris that has blown in during the winter. It is time to prune roses before they start to grow rapidly, especially if the forsythia has bloomed, which is a good “wives’ tale” to go by. This year I pruned early because the roses had started to put out small leaves due to the warm winter. Take out all the dead wood and keep the healthy looking canes, but thin them out if you feel you have too many to create an open shape. You can give them a cup of organic fertilizer and a tablespoon of Epsom Salts to get them going.
Big clumps of perennials can be divided now. You can transplant the divisions to another part of the garden or give them away to a fellow gardener. Many of my favorite plants were divisions given to me by friends and it is nice to think of them as the plants grow and bloom over the years.
Remove all broken or damaged branches on shrubs and trees. It is time to reshape them before their leaves come out. Many shrubs get too big and need to be cut back, so they don’t overpower the bed that they are planted in. You might have to sacrifice some spring blooms, but you will be rewarded next year with a newly invigorated bush.
I always put down Holly-tone on my evergreen shrubs at this time of year so it can be soaked in with the spring rain. Hydrangeas also love a dose of Holly-tone. Hopefully, this year, it is too late for a frost to kill their blossoms as they start to come out. Last year, a warm spell encouraged them to swell too early, and the blossoms got zapped, so there were many green hydrangeas in our gardens, which wasn’t very pleasing.
And finally, this month, start flower and vegetable seeds indoors by Tax Day on April 15th. They will need six to eight weeks to grow before hardening off outside in early June.
Let’s hope 2024 will be a wonderful gardening year without storms and bugs to cause havoc on our efforts!
