Springing into Action!

(Originally posted May 2, 2022)

Hello?!? Is anybody out there? Remember me? I am not offended if you don’t. It’s been quite a while since my last post. As much as I love writing about gardens, this is a side project for me; I do it strictly for fun and sometimes the fun things get put on hold when life gets busy. With that said, I am back and still planning on writing, so if you are willing to continue following my blog, then I am thrilled to have you along for the ride!

It’s hard to believe we are at the start of another growing season. Yay! Spring is here!

Spring. It’s an aptly named season when you really think about it: new life is ‘spring’ing forth from the earth after a long winter slumber, the sun is putting an extra ‘spring’ in our step as we gleefully skip along while the sun’s rays kiss our vitamin D deficient bodies, and we all ‘spring’ into gardening action at the first hint of a warm day. (At what other time of year does 10 degrees Celsius feel balmy??)

Forsythia spp.- a sure sign of spring.

Garage/shed doors are thrown open; gloves, hand tools and rakes come out (Ug. Did I really put those away in that condition?) and we get to work. Our desire to usher out winter and welcome spring is all consuming. With all that pent-up gardening enthusiasm we often get overly zealous with our spring tasks, so it is easy to get ahead of ourselves... which leads me to two main gardening mistakes that we tend to make in early spring:

1. Cleaning up the garden too soon

2. Mulching too soon

Lets look at each of these in turn…

Premature Garden Clean-up

So the equinox has come and gone, warmer weather has made an appearance… oh wait… now it’s gone… now it’s back again… and now it’s snowing?!? Ah yes, spring is an indecisive season. For this reason, it is best to refrain from cleaning out the yard on those first few warm days because severe weather can follow soon after. All the leaves on the beds, and standing herbaceous perennial foliage, can buffer garden plants (and soils) from harsh temperature swings and wild weather. Additionally, all the old flower stalks, perennial stems, and leaves in the garden are valuable overwintering sites for beneficial insects. Leaving everything in place for a little longer allows these beneficial organisms to emerge, enabling them to play a valuable role within the garden ecosystem in the months ahead.

Despite the benefits of all the ‘dead stuff’ in the garden, if you feel you must clean up a little, focus on areas where leaves have piled up over the winter months and make sure these leaf piles are not smothering evergreen foliage or perennials below. I usually do this ‘preliminary leaf clean-up’ within the first two weeks of April and then do a more thorough tidy-up (which includes cutting back herbaceous perennials) sometime between the middle to the end of April.

April snow is often cursed but not overly not unusual in these parts. It’s one of the reasons we need to temper our enthusiasm and hold off on spring clean-up until later in the month.

Mulching too Soon

No question about it, mulch on a garden looks great. (With the exception of red mulch…just don’t do it. Seriously.) Aside from aesthetics, mulch is valuable in many other ways but it’s useful properties make it more of a garden liability when it is applied too early in the season.

For example, mulch has an uncanny ability to prevent the evaporation of water from the soil. This is fantastic during the dog days of summer when rainfall can be scarce, but during the spring when rain is in abundance, we are often dealing with overly saturated soils. Depending on your soil texture, it can take a fair amount of time for soil moisture levels to decrease (clay soils take much longer to dry out than sandy soils). Putting mulch on saturated soil will prolong the length of time it takes for garden soil to dry out. In the meantime, some plants can suffer in the waterlogged conditions and some may rot away.

Mulch is also amazing at blocking sunlight. It is the main reason why it is able to suppress weeds- a thick layer of mulch blocks the light that plants need to grow, and that weed seeds need to germinate. Now take that same mulch and put it over top of perennials just starting to emerge, and you’ve got yourself a problem. I see this issue quite often on properties where landscape crews (who do not know the placement of garden plants that have yet to ‘wake up’) mulch too early in the season and inadvertently cover up (and sometimes smother) garden plants. Whoops.

A Hosta mulched-over by a landscape crew. Luckily this one had already emerged and was freed from the thick mulch blanket. Remember- mulch does not get put over top of plants, it goes around them! It’s hard to apply it properly if you can’t see the plants.

Another benefit of mulch is it’s ability to moderate soil temperatures. This is great for preventing freeze/thaw events during the winter (which can be detrimental to plants) however, if a thick layer of mulch is applied too early in the spring, it can slow the warming up of garden soils- which can negatively impact plant growth.

Finally, mulching should occur after amendment/fertilizer applications are complete (if this is necessary based on soil tests). Mulching before amendments have been applied essentially closes the window to applying amendments and fertilizers directly to the soil where it is needed. Fertilizing early is not an option because plants need to be actively growing to make use of the applied nutrients. If they can’t, the nutrients may be washed out of the soil before they even serve a purpose and nutrient loss can have negative effects within the surrounding environment. This is overly simplified and highly dependent on what is actually getting applied to the garden, but I think you get my point: amendments first, mulch next, but not too early!

As you can see, mulching too soon can be pretty detrimental to a garden. In my area, I generally do not start mulching gardens until the end of May. In some cases I will wait even longer- for instance if I have annuals to get into the ground. For me, the annual planting frenzy kicks-off the third week of May and lasts for a few weeks. It is much easier to apply mulch around annuals after they have been tucked into the garden, rather than try to plant them into a mulched garden bed (which requires the mulch to be pushed out of the way in order to access the actual garden soil for planting… definitely not an efficient way to plant!)

It is much easier to apply mulch after annuals are planted rather than have to dig through mulch to find soil to plant into.

And there you have it! A couple common spring gardening mistakes that I am sure we have all been guilty of at one point or another. So what’s the take home message in all of this? Well, if you feel ‘behind’ in your garden chores- don’t worry! You are most likely not as behind as you think; best case scenario, you are right on schedule! It’s far too early in the season to stress out about falling behind in gardening tasks. Enjoy the ‘spring wake-up’ at a more leisurely pace… your garden (not to mention your body) will thank you.

Wishing you a happy spring! It’s great to be back in the gardens :)

Sanguinaria canadensis (Bloodroot). It’s springtime in our woodlands!

Scilla Sect. Chionodoxa (glory-of-the-snow). A sea of blue is a spring sight to behold!

Leaf Blower Lament

(Originally posted: April 15, 2021)

Oh the sounds of spring are here! It is a wonderful time of year to be in the garden just listening to nature. For me, it is the songbirds that steal the auditory show- a new call seemingly added to the choral collection every day- some whose voices I can identify, but many more that I (sadly) cannot. The collection of songs is exuberance for life put to sound. Hearing them makes it seem as though the whole world is shouting out ‘Rejoice! Rejoice! It’s spring!’

The American Robin- A sure sign of spring both in sight and sound. Photo courtesy of wirestock on www.freepik.com. (What can I say, like bird call identification, bird photography is just not my strength!)

And then it inevitably happens- I am ripped from my blissful bubble of birdsong by a low chugging noise followed by some revving and repetitive crescendos of a screaming engine. Two, three, even four more often join in on the obnoxious party. Asynchronous and without rhythm they create a dreadful chorus that drowns out all other sounds and thoughts.

Oh leaf-blower. How I despise your sound and so many other things about you!

Am I being harsh? Maybe. After all, leaf-blowers have made fast, light work out of many once onerous gardening tasks. But, is it really worth it? There are some serious drawbacks to the indiscriminate use of leaf-blowers in a garden. Let’s have a look at a few of them:

Loss of Soil

How often have you seen a landscape crew rip through a yard during a spring or fall clean-up shrouded in a cloud of dust and mulch pieces? For me the answer is: ‘way too often’.

The top layer of garden soil is the garden’s most valuable layer. It is where the majority of plant roots reside, where the majority of soil organisms live, it is also the layer with the highest organic mater and nutrient content. Essentially it is the topsoil (including the organic layer that lies on top of it) that sustains life. As gardeners, we spend so much time building up this layer by adding compost, manure, shredded leaves, and/or mulch- why would we want to blow all that away?

A little graphic that depicts a very generalized soil profile. In a garden setting, unless groundcovers have been planted, the organic and topsoil layers are exposed, making it really easy for leaf blowers to blow away these layers!
<a href='https://www.freepik.com/vectors/education'>Education vector created by brgfx - www.freepik.com</a>

Damage to Plants

In addition to losing valuable organic matter and nutrients, blowing away the surface of our beds can also expose the roots of some of our more shallow-rooted plants (such as Rhododendron, Hydrangra and Buxus just to name a few). When roots are exposed to air, they ultimately die and this loss of roots can be a stressor on our plants. To take this one step further, plants that are under stress are more susceptible to attack by pests such as insects and disease-causing organisms.

Damage to the Pocketbook

Blowing away mulch and topsoil (as well as other products previously bought to incorporate into the soil) is essentially sending money into the wind. Nothing like spending money and getting nothing in return!

Fossil Fuel Use
Leaf-blowers are terrible for the gas they consume both from the standpoint of fossil fuel consumption, as well as the fumes that the operators must endure.

Noise!

Did I mention that I can’t stand the noise of these blowers?! I am sure I am not alone in this sentiment. Electric and battery powered blowers are far quieter to operate, which is nicer for neighbours, and kinder on the eardrums of the operators too!

FINDING THE BALANCE

Despite this rant, I will admit, I have a leaf blower (gasp!). Not a gas powered beast, just a battery powered piece of equipment. It is a valuable tool in my truck. It makes the cleanup of hardscape a breeze. It is much more effective to blow off (rather than sweep) the mess of potting soil that extends out 10 feet in all directions from any pot I plant-up (hey, what can I say, I’m a messy planter!). It is also way more efficient to blow off a driveway rather sweep it!

My well-used battery powered blower has been worth every penny. It makes hardscape clean-up a breeze and is gentle on the soil when I must use it within the softscape. (I am not affiliated to Stihl in any way!)

Ok, so the good ‘ol blower is great for hardscape, but what about the softscape? Do I use this tool in the garden? Sometimes… and sparingly. Now I will start by saying my blower is not as forceful as it’s gas powered cousins and it has a great range of air speeds that I can easily control. For my needs, this is a good thing as I find soil tends to stay put when I use my blower on it. Additionally, I do not use my blower to make a garden spotless, I generally use it as a rough and quick ‘inital pass’ on the beds (usually only during spring and fall clean-ups) and I leave the detail work to be done by hand, which ensures that garden mulch and soil remains in place. Picking out debris by hand has the added benefit of putting me into the garden where I am better able to spot issues within the beds or on the plants.

Well thanks for hearing out my rant! If anything, let this post be ‘food for thought’. A reminder that all our actions will have consequences that affect our gardens and even small adaptations to how we conduct ourselves can make a difference in the overall health of our garden soil and therefore plants.

Now, back to my symphony…

SPRING CLEANING: The Finishing Touch

(Originally posted: May 9, 2019)

I wrapped up my Spring clean-ups just over a week ago (yippee!) but I just wanted to dedicate one more post to the final step of my clean-ups which I term the ‘flip and fluff’. This ‘finishing touch’ step will not only make your garden look amazing but it is a step that can come in handy at other points throughout the growing season to ‘refresh’ the look of your garden.

The ‘flip and fluff’ is pretty simple: it involves flipping the existing mulch on the beds and fluffing it up. (If you do not have mulch, cultivating the soil would be the equivalent task for you.) This process, which is often overlooked, serves three main purposes for me:

1) It gives me a chance to see how much mulch is remaining on the beds; with this information, I can gauge how much I will need to add for the season

2) It refreshes the look of the beds… a lot! It turns ‘old and tired’ into ‘new and fresh’ (even though it isn’t new… or fresh… which makes this an extremely useful ‘garden hack’.)

3) Shredded mulches tend to weave together in a layer that can repel water; every now and then, this layer needs to be broken up so that moisture can easily penetrate the mulch and reach the soil.

Mulches of different colours and textures. The fibers of shredded mulches (such as the mulch in the centre photo) tend to weave together to form a somewhat water-repelling layer. This mulch needs to be broken up not only to refresh it’s ‘look’ but to also allow water to get through the mulch to reach the soil below.

‘Flip and Fluff’ is super-easy! The only tools required are a cultivator and your hands and you can achieve awesome results in three main steps:

1) Use the cultivator to lift the existing layer of mulch and flip it over

2) Break up the mulch (I use my hands to ‘crumble’ it and loosen it up)

3) Disperse the mulch over the bed so that it is nice and level and looks uniform (no lumps allowed!). Once again, I do this task by hand as it gives me the most control over the finished look of the bed. Some people are incredibly skilled with a cultivator and can get an amazingly smooth and uniform bed using one. I am not one of those people, so I invest in good knee pads and have become really used to seeing mulch up close!

A visual progression of flipping and fluffing the mulch in a garden bed.

If you are cultivating your beds, just a few things to note:

• Be careful of plant roots: if you are working around trees and shrubs and having a hard time getting the cultivator through the soil because of root systems, then back off! Your plants will thank you for not disturbing their roots!

• Be careful near perennials: don’t cultivate deeply around perennials- you can easily disturb their roots without even knowing it.

• If you are allowing something to seed in an area- do not cultivate

• If you have any perennial weeds (more about this in a future post)- do not cultivate. Breaking up many of these weeds can worsen your problem.

There you have it! The ‘flip and fluff’- a task that requires trial and error and a dash of finesse. Once you get into your groove and put it to work in your beds, I promise you that your efforts will be worthwhile.