It’s almost spring, y’all! Our urban gardens here in Charlotte have woken up! Daffodils, tulips and the first trees are blooming. Time to get your gardening gloves out and say hello to your yard!
While your spring garden is in bloom, be sure to snap some photos! They will help you this fall when it’s time to plant new bulbs. Drawing a map of where your spring bloomers are would also come in super handy later this year. Pinch spent blooms but leave their leaves alone. The bulbs need them to produce nutrients for another beautiful bloom next year.
Add beautiful cool season annuals for additional pops of color, textures and height! Violas and pansies are some of our favorites that won’t mind the occasional cold spell our crazy North Carolina weather can still produce here or there.
It is spring vegetable time! Continue sowing spinach, lettuce, kale, carrots, beets, radishes and so forth. Plant cool season seedlings of vegetables and herbs. Our Garden Center has the finest specimen including delicious rosemary! Not only will it add great flavor to your meals but also is it hated by mosquito who will avoid the area around it. Perfect for patios!
Also start to think about your summer vegetables and summer annuals this month and start seeds indoors if that’s your routine. Personally, I wait to pick up plants from Blackhawk’s Garden Center once it’s time to plant them outside after the danger of frost has passed. For us that’s April 4th according to the Farmer’s Almanac so don’t let those recent warm days fool you!
March is also a good gardening month to plant bushes and shrubs. Planting them in spring allows bushes to work on their root system before the hot Carolina summer heat hits.
Continue to prune existing bushes and trees – but wait until spring flowering bushes are done blooming! Good candidates to work on right now are butterfly bushes and and crape myrtles. Now that growth has started you’ll easily be able to identify any growth that did not survive winter and clean it up.
Unfortunately, now that growing season is here we’ll also have to watch for weeds and other out of place plants. Our preferred method is to pull or dig them out but if you need some help, come visit our “Aisle of Death” for weed control. We also have an “Aisle of Life” that features fertilizers including organic ones to help your plants thrive.
