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.

SPRING CLEANING: Plant Clean-up

(Originally posted May 3, 2019

Let the show begin!

So the clean-up of our yards continues, and to date we have focused on bed clean-up, but another important part of Spring clean-up is tidying up the plants. (As a side note, I usually tend to the plants at the same time as the beds, but with my posts already being SO long-winded, I figured that I would divide these tasks into two more manageable posts! Bear with me- I’m still learning this whole ‘blog’ thing!)

OK. Back to the plants…

So you think you are worn out from the winter? Take a look at your surrounding landscape… I think our plants have the tougher end of the deal! At this time of year many of them could use a little TLC. In general, when I say ‘tidying up plants’, there are a few tasks I am referring to:

• cutting back perennials that were left standing over the winter

• removing ‘sad’ looking foliage on evergreen/semi-evergreen perennials

• doing Spring pruning on appropriate plants

• doing structural pruning on trees and shrubs while the branches are bare (with no leaves on the branches, it makes it very easy to see any issues with the branching framework of trees/shrubs, it also makes it easy to see other issues such as diseased tissue that can be pruned out)

For this post, I am going to focus on perennials (the first two points above).

CUTTING BACK PERENNIALS

Although I am a gardener, I have a confession to make- I LOVE THE SNOW! Before you stop reading, let me make my case for winter…

Not only does the cold weather open up a wide variety of recreational opportunities but it can also be a magical time in the garden. The touch of sparkling frost coating leaves or the dusting of snow on seed pods is just MAGIC! So with that in mind, anything that keeps some sort of structure into the winter months I will leave standing, with the plan to cut it back in the Spring- why would I want to cheat myself of this often overlooked season in the garden? Not to mention, the seed heads of many perennials, when left standing, can provide habitat value in the form of food for birds. All-in-all it’s a win-win situation!

Now that Spring has arrived, I must face these postponed tasks and cut back these plants to make way for new growth.

One common type of landscape plant that requires a tidy-up at this time of year (even if it was cut back in the fall) are ornamental grasses. Time to chop ‘em down, clean ‘em out, and wait for the first hint of green to emerge. You can use hedge shears or secateurs but regardless of your tool of choice, make the clump look LEVEL or domed (in a Spring garden, you want to maximize ‘tidy’ wherever you can since there is nowhere that messy plants can hide in a bare landscape!). As a very general guideline, I cut larger grasses down to a height of about 20-30 cm and smaller grasses to a height of 5-10 cm. Once cut down, I will then rake out the clumps with my fingers to remove debris and loose stalks within the clump. This final step really ‘ups’ the tidiness factor and frees up the plant for new growth.

Cutting down of an ornamental grass to make way for new growth. Not only was the grass cut down, but the clump was ‘raked through’ by hand to remove any other debris to really ‘clean up’ and ‘free’ the clump!

Many other perennials require pruning in the Spring; some of the more common ones in the landscape include:

• Anemone spp. (Anemone)

• Chrysanthemum spp. (Chrysanthemum)

• Coreopsis spp. (Tickseed)

• Echinacea spp. and Rudbeckia spp. (Coneflowers)

• Salvia spp. (Sage)

• Sedum spp. (Stonecrop)

Plants that I keep up over the winter.

For the plants listed above, and any others that you have left standing in your garden for the winter, cut back the dried foliage and flower stalks but be careful to not cut any green leaves at the base of the plants. These leaves are the ones that will grow for this current gardening season.

From left to right: A small clump of Sedum sp. with flower stalks that were left upright for winter interest. The same clump with stalks cut down to the base of the new growth and other garden debris removed from around the plant.

REMOVING ‘SAD’ LOOKING FOLIAGE ON EVERGREEN/SEMI-EVERGREEN PERENNIALS

Some perennials remain evergreen or semi-evergreen over the winter months. If a perennial is not completely browned and dried up in the Spring, chances are you are dealing with a perennial in one of these categories. In this case, it is only the ‘sad’ looking foliage that requires attention. Trim off the dead leaves (like those in the Bergenia patch shown below).

Left to right: Before and after photos of a Bergenia patch. It may be difficult to see, but the nearly black leaves have been cut off to tidy up the plants (and to eliminate the presence of soggy rotting leaves from within the plants- a magnet for slugs and promoter of disease issues!)

And there you have it! Another avenue that you can take to further tidy your Spring garden and prep it for the season ahead. Now sit back, grab your ‘bevie’ of choice and watch ‘garden life’ unfold!

SPRING CLEANING: Debris Clean-up

(Originally posted April 26, 2019)

Buds bursting into bloom- a sure sign of spring! (Photo Credit: Mohammad Ali Jafarian; Unsplash)

As the snow disappears and a brown world emerges, most gardeners anxiously await the burst of green that is ushered in by warmer temperatures and Spring rains. In our area, I know many people feel that the ‘brown season’ (that period between snow melt and Spring green-up) lasts for an eternity; for me it is fleeting- mainly because there is so much to do to prepare the gardens for the growing season ahead!

As soon as the ground is not too soggy, and the threat of extreme cold has passed, I begin my clean-ups -usually the middle of April. Although I spend the later half of March and beginning of April doing my dormant season pruning, it is during my Spring clean-ups that I get myself reaquainted with my gardens, greet them after a long winter, see what has changed, as well as jog my memory on consistent issues that need to be addressed in the months ahead. During this time, I cover every square meter of the garden to not only make it look great, but also to complete a thorough assessment of it and come up with my game plan for the growing season.

Clean-up is pretty basic and meditative (to be read ‘tedious’ if you do not like repetitive tasks!). Essentially I am uncovering the garden from the debris (mainly leaves) that swirled around and deposited in the garden late in the fall, or dropped on it over the course of the winter. I am also cutting back perennials that I left up over the winter for the purpose of ‘winter interest’... more on this in my next post! Now back to ‘debris’…

Debris: Friend or Foe?

Ah. The great debate.

In nature, nutrients are recycled. In simple terms, plants take up nutrients from the soil and use them to grow biomass such as wood, leaves, flowers, seeds, etc. When things such as leaves drop in the fall, they eventually break down and the nutrients go back into the soil to be used by plants once again. Unfortunately in urban environments, we make it an annual ritual to strip away everything that our plants drop onto our properties. That’s a whole lot of nutrients being carted away to municipal compost sites. We cut off the nutrient cycle and as a result, in the long term, our gardens suffer.

So how much ‘organic matter’ should gardeners leave on their garden beds? Although some leaves left to decompose on beds are good (they add nutrients and organic matter to the soil- definitely a good thing), too many can pose a problem in an ornamental garden. Piles of leaves (especially really thick ones) can easily smother plants, especially when left on groundcovers or the foliage of evergreens.

Leaf litter (Photo credit: Hq Lightroom; Unsplash)

Ultimately, the amount of ‘debris’ left on a garden is the personal preference of the gardener (many gardeners can turn a blind eye to some leaf litter on the beds, reassured by the fact that they are ‘feeding’ their soil and therefore their plants). I am in the business of trying to make gardens look immaculate. While not ideal from an ‘ecological perspective’, I generally remove all debris from the beds (except for old mulch, which I keep on the beds) so that they look tidy. With that said, it is always at the forefront of my mind that what I remove, I must replace in the form of amendments (manures, compost, mulch) at a later date. So, if you are like me and constantly removing organic matter from your garden, then please join me in this really important pledge…

I, [insert your name here], promise you, my garden, that what I take away from you in the form of ‘debris’, I will give back to you, in the form of amendments later in the growing season. I will monitor your health through soil testing and let the results guide my actions.

Regardless of your overall debris tolerance, there is always clean-up to do in the Spring. I have found that there are three key areas to keep in mind when cleaning out leaves. If you focus on these areas, you can maximize the well-being of your plants… as well as the tidiness level of your garden.

1) LEAF MATS ON GROUNDCOVERS AND EVERGREENS

Beware!!! Mats of leaves, especially thick ones such as those from oak trees (Quercus spp.), left on groundcovers, evergreens, and emerging perennials can easily smother foliage or emerging growth! Do your plants a favour and remove these leaves- your garden will look a million times better too!

From left to right: Cotoneaster sp. covered with leaf litter from the winter; Cotoneaster sp. with leaf litter picked out.

From left to right: Leaves in and around a patch of Pachysandra terminalis (Japanese spurge); a much tidier Pachysandra patch with leaves removed

2) THE BASES OF SHRUBS

So I have a confession- leaves stuck within the bases of shrubs drive me absolutely CRAZY! (Ak! So messy!) So it goes without saying that I spend time picking these leaves out. My eyes not only breathe a sigh of relief, but the shrubs do too. A pile-up of rotting leaves can act the same as a pile of mulch against the base of shrubs- a trap for moisture which can in turn lead to rot and diseases. A build-up of leaves can also create a cozy little home for insect pests too. So you may not be bothered by the look of leaves trapped within your shrubs, and you may curse me as you are picking them out, but your shrubs will thank you. Listen carefully… they speak quietly :)

From left to right: Leaves trapped within Spirea branches don’t seem to look too bad… until you pick them out and you are left with a much tidier bed. Ah. Satisfaction.

3) LEAVES HUNG-UP IN THE FOLIAGE OF PLANTS

Leaves and fallen branches hung up within small trees and shrubs is another easy ‘issue’ to address that can make a big difference in how tidy a garden looks. It’s an easy thing to overlook (especially when you have your head down in the dirt) but it’s an excuse to look up and enjoy the springtime garden.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Sigh. It’s good to be back in the dirt.

HAPPY SPRING CLEANING!