Month: April 2011

Martin’s Garden Notes

Easter is a wonderful time of year with the world waking up and nature’s rebirth becoming so evident. One gratifying activity is planting your Holiday flowers in the garden to enjoy them again next year.

When the flowers are faded snip off the blooms and keep the plant in a sunny window until you can plant it. This year with  a late Easter, the plants can be set in the garden as soon as the flowers have faded. For all plants, add a little bulb food as directed on the package. Tulips would like a little lime as well. Plant the bulbs so as not to disturb the roots and plant them 4-5 inches deeper in the ground than they are in the pot. Leave the foliage on each plant until it has faded. Lilies, including Easter Lilies often bloom again in the fall.

Most azaleas and hydrangeas are not winter hardy but can be grown outside over the summer and brought inside as late as possble but before it gets below 30 degrees. They will bloom sometime in the late winter.

 Martin’s Garden Notes

Forsythia are a great welcome to spring with their bright golden blooms. They grow quite large so you don’t need many. Give Forsythia about 8 feet by 8 feet of space. When large enough, you can cut branches in the winter and let them bloom in a vase.  After a few years, remove a few of the oldest branches to the ground when blooming is over. This encourages new shoots so your Forsythia will maintain a graceful form and a manageble size.

Witch Hazel bloom even earlier than Forsythia, often in mid February. They grow in an upright  vase shape , we stock Arnold’s Promise a yellow and a red-orange variety. A good companion for Forsythia is the Rhododendron PJM, a popular variety with purple blooms that contrast nicely with Forsythia.

There are  similar varieties including Aglo (hot pink) and Molly Fordham (white) that bloom a little later for a nice sequence.

For later blooms, Viburnums of several varieties and Weigela, wich grow in the same manor as Forsythia, blooms in late May in red or pink.