April showers bring May flowers but this spring weather has been downright flaky.
Yes, those were snowflakes coming down the other day as I looked out from my balcony, and frankly there were few signs of life other than the geese and ducks chasing each other around. The trees lining the river are still partially submerged in dirty grey water and muck. It looks pretty bleak.
Yet, there are patches of grass greening up in the warmer spots on the landscape plus spring flowering bulbs and the shoots of perennials pushing up through the earth in some yards. Gardeners I know are just itching to get out there and get growing, but it hasn't been the kindest April.
With plant-shopping sprees on the horizon, here are some tasks that can be completed, weather permitting, that will take you to the end of May and the beginning of the frost-free planting days when gardening begins in earnest.
* If you've been sedentary all winter, approach your initial gardening chores with a bit of restraint. Use tools to help with heavy lifting or ask for assistance. Raking or digging can be done in small doses to avoid injuries.
* Hardy lilies and tender summer-flowering bulbs can be potted indoors to get a jump on the season. Once growth emerges, take them outside during the warmth of the day and bring them inside overnight.
* Top-dress your beds with a couple of inches of nutrient-rich compost, mushroom manure or triple-mix topsoil.
* Weed, weed, weed. Many pernicious plants are the first to appear in the spring and they are often the most pervasive. Hoe or yank them out before they get a firm hold in your veggie patch or flower beds.
* Cut a fresh edge to the borders to stop encroaching grass and help keep the beds looking tidy. Installing brick or plastic edging helps keep grass and weeds at bay but it needs to be dug out and re-done every few years.
* If you can't resist the temptation to buy new annuals weeks before planting in the ground, be sure to protect them from frost at night. Perennials are much tougher but young greenhouse-grown plants in containers still may need a hardening-off period to get used to fluctuating highs and lows as well as varying amounts of sunshine. Place them in a sheltered, semi-shaded spot outside and gradually expose them to increasing amounts of direct sun and wind to avoid stressing them.
* Clean your pots and planters and top off or replace the potting soil. Clean and sharpen all your tools and disinfect them with a mild bleach solution or rubbing alcohol to prevent spreading disease from plant to plant as you putter around the garden.
* Fine-tune your wish list for plant shopping but also keep an open mind to try something new (and perhaps exciting) this year. And, when it's really lousy out, nothing picks me up like a leisurely browse in the garden centres. Pick up some new seed varieties to sow later in situ while the selection is at it's best. Try some new vegetable varieties or a few flowers you've never grown before.
* If you haven't already got one, start a compost bin. Buy a kit, make your own or simply designate an out-of-the-way area of your yard to pile yard waste and herbaceous kitchen scraps.
* Plant some cool-weather containers for instant early spring colour. Choose pansies, violas, primulas, snapdragons, dusty miller, dracaena spikes, dianthus or ask for cold-tolerant selections at the garden centre.
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Further to the inquiries about the Wisteria to be sold at The Friends Mother's Day plant sale mentioned in last week's column, the cultivar of Kentucky Wisteria is Wisteria macrostachya Blue Moon, a hardy selection from Minnesota.
Shelmerdine Nursery and Garden Centre will be carrying it also. I've never grown wisteria so I did some research on the Internet to see what others have to say about Blue Moon.
From Monrovia:
http://www.monrovia.com/learn/plant_catalog/detail.php?id=3908
Wisteria macrostachya Blue Moon
Blue Moon Kentucky Wisteria
* Key Feature: extremely hardy
* Cold hardiness USDA Zone: 4-9
* Light needs: full to partial sun
* Mature size: Twining stems 15 to 25 ft. long.
* Growth Habit: climbing
* Blooms: Blue-violet repeatedly late spring through summer.
Exciting native species improved to dependably bloom up to three times in a single growing season. Lavender blue flowers occur in foot-long clusters. The hardiest of wisteria. Cloaks shade arbors and structures. Ideal for arching over gateways and entries, or along the top of a wall. Deciduous. Full to partial sun. Twining stems 15 to 25 feet long.
From springgarden.ca:
Besides a bone-chilling tolerance to cold temperatures, Blue Moon is an exceptionally dependable variety of re-blooming wisteria. If situated in full sun, it will bloom up to three times during the growing season. Flowers are a beautiful lavender-blue and develop in foot-long clusters--fragrant, too! Full sun to partial shade. Deer resistant USDA Zones: 4-9
From Jim Kohut (staff, writer from Northscaping)
http://www.northscaping.com/InfoZone/IS-0137/IS-0137.shtml
Wisteria (Wisteria spp., zone 5+) - No vine is more coveted by northerners, yet more frustrating to southerners who can grow it with ease -- almost too much ease. Where it is hardy enough, this is one of the most vigorous of all vines, quickly forming a thick trunk with heavy branches, so give it a very, very strong structure to grow on! The flowers are the sole reason for its popularity; the long chains of purple or white pea-shaped flowers, many fragrant, hang gracefully from the twining, trailing vines in spring, and when in bloom, few plants can compete. While most of the southern varieties are not hardy here, the native species W. macrostachya (Kentucky wisteria) is worth a try into Zone 4, particularly the cultivars Aunt Dee and Blue Moon.
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Ever Spring Orchids annual Open House, May 2 and 3 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m..
Check out what's new and fresh in the greenhouse, 2868 Pipeline Rd. The first 50 customers on Saturday and Sunday will receive a free orchid plant.
Discounts up to 50 per cent off. Potting Demonstration and Q&A plus coffee and refreshments. Call 338-2340 for more information.
linda.stilkowski@freepress.mb.ca
