Look to the Garden for Answers

– By Chris Cohan –

This is one heck of a spring. Winter was mild and forced many innocent bulbs to begin blooming in January, only to be slapped down by a frigid February. We just clocked the coldest Easter in 50 years. We are recovering from two brutal storms that flooded the area. Nevertheless, daffodils, those dainty looking barometers of spring, just keep chugging along. They have kept their powder dry until the coast is clear. They know when it's time to poke their heads up and perform their rite of spring performance. We could all learn from them.

Once you finish cleaning out the basement and want to see the light of day, direct your attention to the garden. You need to stay ahead of the plants coming alive after a long winter. They are ready to go and have no time to wait for indecisive and directionless gardeners. So, as the saying goes: Plan the work and work the plan.

Roses are ready to be fussed over. Begin by cleaning up the beds, removing all dead wood and leaves. Prune them back to outward facing buds. Remove several older canes to stimulate new growth. Work two tablespoons of Epsom salt into the soil around the base of all roses to reduce black spot.

Remove dead, dying and weak branches from all other plants. Cut spirea, buddleia, and caryopteris as low as possible. They all bloom on new wood. Spend the time now and your garden will be gloriously filled with their summer flowers.

I have found that praying mantis laid their egg sacs in spirea. So check all bare twiggy growth before pruning. The sacs look like a small clump of brownish cotton candy wrapped around a branch. If you find one, leave it. You can always remove it later, after the eggs have hatched. Spirea will also reward you with a fine second flower, if you prune after the first bloom.

Peonies are just pushing above ground. Now is the time to work a generous amount of fertilizer around the crowns. Water in well and install peony hoops right away.

Clean up hollyhocks, remove any dead plant material and add Epsom salts, as with roses. Spray azaleas, mountain laurel and andromeda for mealy bug and red spider mite. Call a certified arborist if you have tree issues that need to be addressed.

Your lawn may be looking bleak. Cheer up, it's supposed to look tired after a long winter. Once the days are warmer and filled with sunshine, it will rapidly respond.

Alas, all too many lawn generals are pondering how to once again achieve the perfectly green carpet-like lawn. The annual delusion is as predictable as the return of swallows to San Juan Capistrano. I love a green lawn as much as the next guy; but one day, while walking around the Rye Town Duck Pond thinking about my lawn, I saw my reflection in the water and realized the falsehood I was living. What is this obsession with having an artificially green swatch of grass? Sooner or later, we have to let go of the illusions we make of what we think we possess, as Hermann Hesse wrote in “Siddhartha.”

The opportunity to be alone with your thoughts is one of the great benefits of gardening. Now more than ever may be the time for our leaders to spend more time in their gardens. Whether they decide to plant a garden of bounty, a stop-gap cover crop or repellent thorn bushes, the simple act of gardening signifies that they are thoughtfully planning for the future.

I truly believe we all want the future to be better for ourselves, family and generations to come. But to get there, we must develop a clear plan. Otherwise, where the heck are we heading? You can find the answers to so many questions in the garden.