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ON YOUR KNEES
Weekend of May 11, 1996
This is the time of the Great Spring Shuffle.
The annual event begins on a bright morning when I carry my morning coffee outdoors. While wandering about, deadheading a few daffodils and watching the grackles sort through the mulch for nesting materials, I realize (yet again) that almost every plant in the garden is still in the wrong place.
My friend Sally says we gardeners are always moving plants about, and wonders why we don’t get it right by at least the third try, if not sooner. Lots of reasons, Sally. Ignorance is a big one, and it’s cheering to think that there’s some hope for a partial cure for that.
But another main reason is that any garden is in a constant state of change. The foxgloves that did so well in the light shade of the Japanese honeysuckle that I finally managed to eradicate are now baking to a crisp in hot sun.
People are always asking when to move some plant. The real answer is that you can move anything any time the ground isn’t frozen, as long as you keep it well watered afterwards. But this is one of the ideal times—early fall being the other—because nature is likely to help with the aftercare. By now almost everything is up (you can’t move what you can’t find) and has got big enough to reveal its true nature.
For instance, I was delighted with what I thought was a fine crop of hollyhock seedlings a few weeks ago. During last week’s warm spell, the hollyhocks exposed themselves as hedge mustard, so they’ll be moved—directly to the compost pile. So move anything you want to now, and if it continues to drizzle for the rest of the month, you’ll have one reason to be pleased.
This is probably the last reasonable time to sow cool-weather vegetables— lettuces, spinach, arugula, radishes, beets. It’s late for peas. Voles ate most of my pea seed, so I’m trying to decide if it’s too late to replant. It might be worthwhile if we have a long cool spring, but it will be a waste of effort if we have one of those years that ushers in July on the first of June.
Unless you’re set up to coddle them in a cold frame, and are around full-time to do so, resist those packs of tomatoes, marigolds, petunias, and other tender annuals. They’ll just sulk until the weather warms up, if frost doesn’t finish them. However, if you can make your purchases and plant them the weekend before Memorial Day, you’ll beat the crowds and find a better selection.
Early-blooming perennials are another story. Adams has a good selection of quart pots of creeping phlox, sedums, and dianthus. Choosing them in bloom ensures you get exactly what you want. I always look for a pot with lush foliage that’s behindhand on blooming. If I cut off any buds and get it into the ground right away, the plant will often flower in my garden, rather than in the store.
THIS WEEK
The first week in May, there’s a vast amount we should be doing, but I’m not doing a lot of it. I think one of the beauties of gardening is that plenty unfolds without our help. If I don’t sow poppies this week, I won’t have poppies this June; but poppy seed keeps well, I’ll use it next year, and I’ll find flowers in June that I can’t even remember on this misty May afternoon.
It’s high time to make the strawberry bed I’ve planned, but if I don’t get to it I shall be able to pick strawberries at Davenport’s. Tonight, we’ll have both asparagus and rhubarb from the garden, because several years ago I was more ambitious than I am this year. If you’re feeling energetic, start your bed of strawberries, rhubarb, asparagus. If not, don’t. You’ll find excellent local asparagus and rhubarb in the markets, which will free up your time for getting after the hedge mustard, mowing the onions in the lawn, moving the foxgloves, or whatever seems like most fun at the moment. I’m going to pick a bouquet of tulips, my reward for last October’s efforts, and move the ‘Violet Pearl’ hyacinths that clashed so violently with the yellow daffodils I forgot about last fall.
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