April Garden Tips & Tasks

Spring — however capricious it may be — has arrived, and it’s time to head back outdoors, keeping an eye on the weather. Gardeners in Middle Tennessee — Zone 7a, where The Garden Bench calls home — are anxious to get the season started. Warmer areas are already in full swing; if it’s cooler where you are, it’s getting close!

If you live in Middle Tennessee, there are a couple of good garden events to look forward to — both live this year! The annual Perennial Plant Sale sponsored by the Perennial Plant Society of Middle Tennessee will be held Saturday, April 9, 2022. The Herb Society of Nashville’s annual Herb Sale will be Saturday, April 30, 2022. Both will be at The Fairgrounds Nashville’s Expo 3 Building. Details are in the sidebar, or visit the organizations’ web sites. The annual Herb & Craft Fair sponsored by First Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashville will be Saturday, April 23, 2022, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Here’s what else is on your garden to-do list for April.

Early this month

Did your hardy herbs survive winter? Trim dead foliage of sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano and other cold-damaged herbs. Replant those that didn’t make it through the freezing weather.

Trees and shrubs planted in spring need plenty of water during the first year of growth, especially as the weather gets warmer.

Set out hummingbird feeders to welcome the birds back to your garden. Hummingbird nectar recipe: one part sugar to four parts water. It’s not necessary to use red food coloring.

Plant your favorite herbs: parsley, sage, thyme, rosemary can be planted early in the month. Basil and dill are more tender herbs, so wait a bit longer to be sure the weather is warm enough.

To have a big display of flowers in summer, sow seeds and plant summer-flowering bulbs in April: zinnias, sunflowers, cleome, cosmos and other summertime favorites.

Mid-April

Get rid of weeds while they’re small and easy to pull. Use mulch to keep weed growth (and weed-pulling) to a minimum.

Mid-April marks the official last-frost date in Middle Tennessee, and it’s usually safe to set out warm-weather bedding plants such as petunias, coleus and begonias, and vegetable transplants — tomatoes, peppers, eggplants. But keep an eye on the weather. Spring is unpredictable!

Sow seeds of okra, cucumbers, squash, beans, melons, and other kitchen-garden favorites.

Don’t skimp on mulch. Use it to keep weed growth (and weed-pulling) to a minimum, and to help keep the soil moist in annual, perennial and vegetable beds.

Remove the dead flowers and stalks of daffodils, tulips and hyacinths, but leave the foliage until it turns yellow. This is the time spring-flowering bulbs build up energy to bloom again next year.

Later this month

If you don’t have space for a kitchen garden, at least plant herbs in a pot. Some favorite container combinations for cooks: parsley, basil and thyme; rosemary sage and chives; mint, basil and dill. Remember to water containers frequently as summer weather approaches.

The best time to prune azaleas, flowering quince, forsythia, lilac and other early-flowering shrubs is right after they finish blooming. These plants begin forming buds for next year’s flowers on this year’s growth.

Many houseplants thrive in shady, protected spots outdoors. Place them where they won’t get blown by strong winds, pelted by hard rain or disturbed by marauding animals.

If you plant shrubs and trees this spring, make sure they get plenty of water during their first year of growth, especially as the weather gets warmer.

Provide about an inch of water a week to lawns and garden beds.

March into the garden with these tips and tasks

Gardeners in Middle Tennessee (home of The Garden Bench) know that, in spite of what the calendar says, early spring has arrived. It’s almost March, and buds are swelling, bulbs are up and many are blooming, tips of favorite perennials are poking up through the mulch. And while we know that winter can – probably will – visit us again in a few days, we can get outdoors and enjoy the emergence of the new season with these early-spring tips and tasks.

Spanish bluebells emerging

Prepare new garden beds: Have the soil tested (check with your county’s Extension service to learn how). Remove grass and dig or till soil 8 to 10 inches deep and mix with soil amendments and organic matter to improve drainage.

Add a dose of fertilizer to perennials as soon as you see new growth. Keep it light; too much fertilizer may result in lanky growth.

Cut back liriope and other ornamental grasses. It’s easier now that it will be once new growth emerges.

If your fescue lawn looks a little skimpy, overseed early this month. Fescue grows best when the weather is still cool. It’s best to wait until early fall for a complete lawn renovation.

Plant lettuce and other cool-weather crops

Herb transplants that don’t mind cool weather — parsley, cilantro, sage, oregano – can go in the ground now. And of course you can also plant seeds and transplants of radishes, lettuce, spinach and other cool-season vegetables.

Clip dead stems from perennial herbs – thyme, sage, lavender, rosemary (if your rosemary survived; many Middle Tennessee gardeners’ rosemary plants succumbed to the cold this winter). Pruning those perennial herbs encourages vigorous new growth. Remove mulch or leaves that may be covering perennials in garden beds.

If you need to prune nandinas, flowering quince and other airy shrubs, don’t shear the shrubs. Reach in and remove about a third of the branches at ground level.

Give pansies a light dose of fertilizer as they continue to bloom through early spring.

When you cut daffodils and other early-spring flowers to bring inside, cut the stems at an angle and place them in water right away. Change the water in the vase daily to keep them fresh longer.

 

Dig daffodils, save the bulbs

The daffodil bed needed thinning, so I dug them out after the leaves started turning yellow and replanted many of them in the same place. Now I have dozens of extra bulbs I can share with friends. Do they need to be planted right away?

When a daffodil bed begins to look crowded and you begin to see fewer flowers, it’s a sure sign that the bulbs need to be thinned out. One bulb becomes a clump of bulbs after a few years. The American Daffodil Society suggests digging and dividing daffodils about every 4 – 5 years.

The ADS notes that the time to do this job in many regions is now – after blooming ends and the foliage turns yellow. To save bulbs for later planting, wash them thoroughly and let them dry completely, at least a week, and put them in mesh bags, onion sacks or pantyhose and hang them in the coolest place you can find, a place with good air circulation to minimize storage rot.
Store them until the time is right to plant them in the fall.

To learn more about daffodils, visit the American Daffodil Society website, where you can also find links to regional daffodil societies in different parts of the country. In Nashville and Middle Tennessee (where The Garden Bench calls home), the Middle Tennessee Daffodil Society is the group for daffodil enthusiasts. MTDS will host the 2018 American Daffodil Convention and Show, April 5 – 8 in Franklin, TN. Visit the MTDS website here.

 

 

When daffodils don’t bloom

I covered my daffodils in the fall with a heavy layer of pine straw. The leaves have come up but they are not budding or blooming. Is the pine straw too acidic for these plants?

After a long winter, we look forward to the daffodils blooming in spring, and it’s a disappointment when they don’t produce the flowers we expect.

The failure to bloom is not due to pine straw causing acid soil; daffodils – or jonquils, as we sometimes call them — tolerate a range of soil types, as long as it is well-drained and moderately fertile, and some varieties actually prefer slightly acid soil. A lot of garden experts suggest mulching daffodil beds with a light layer of pine straw. Small, early blooming daffodils may not be able to penetrate a thick layer of mulch.

So consider some of the other possible reasons daffodils don’t bloom:

December garden tips & tasks

You may live in a climate that can grow a garden all year, and if so, good for you. The rest of us may be glad for a little break, and time to gather energy for the next gardening season, which will be here before we know it.

Plant tulip bulbs now to bloom next spring.

Even during this down-time, though, some may find it hard to stay out of the garden, and for those of us who can’t stay indoors, there are still reasons to get out there. Consider these garden tips and tasks – out in the yard and around the house — that are perfect for a sunny day in winter:

∙ If you bought spring-flowering bulbs but haven’t put them in the ground, rest assured that it’s still not too late to plant them. Even planted this late, they’ll be better off in the ground than in the bags you brought them home in! But do try to get them in the ground by the end of the month.

∙ December is a good month to plant shrubs and trees. Dig a wide hole that is only as deep as the shrub’s root ball, place the plant in the hole and fill in the soil. Be sure to firm the soil around the root ball, water well, and add several inches of mulch.

If it’s below 50 degrees out, protect new houseplants when you bring them in from the car.

∙ If you buy new houseplants, keep them covered on the trip from the store to the car, and the car to the house. Cold air could harm plants that are not accustomed to the chill. Inside, watch for mealybugs, aphids and scale on houseplants and outdoor plants that are wintering indoors. If you find evidence of these or other pests, take action right away.

∙ Water houseplants regularly, but test the soil for moisture before watering. Many houseplants need less water in winter.

∙ Trim dead foliage and flowers of houseplants and outdoor plants that are indoors for the winter. Clean the leaves, and re-pot plants as needed.

∙ If landscape plants are uprooted by freezing and thawing soil, tuck the roots back into the soil and cover with a layer of mulch.

∙ Be sure you have drained and stored hoses and sprinklers before a prolonged cold spell. Those tools last much longer when they’re protected from freezing.

Bright, filtered light and moderate water keep a poinsettia happy for months.

∙ Here’s how to take care of your Christmas poinsettia so that it last through the holidays and into next spring: If the outdoor temperature is below 50 degrees, protect it from cold air when you move it from the car to the house. Place it where it can receive bright, indirect sunlight for about six hours a day. Remove the foil wrapper when you water, to allow water to drain, and keep the soil slightly moist, but not soggy.

∙ Take a walk around your landscape and through your garden, considering what you’d like to add, move or change next season.

 

Daffodils can be early risers

It’s mid-January, and the daffodils in our yard are already starting to come up. The shoots are about 3 – 5 inches above the ground. Won’t they freeze when the temperature drops?

It’s not unusual for the shoots of early-blooming daffodils to begin pushing up through the ground, even as early as January – the same time as the crocuses. Cold weather may slow their growth, but it won’t kill them. This time of year, the worst that could happen is that the weather turns warm and stays warm enough long enough that the daffodils bloom. The flowers might then succumb to a snap of extreme cold, but if buds have not begun to show color, they should be fine.

There are several daffodil cultivars that bloom in late winter, and planting those types can extend the blooming season from late winter into mid-spring. Among the early-blooming favorites are cultivars called ‘Sweetness,’ ‘Jetfire,’ ‘Barrett Browning,’ ‘February Gold,’ and others.

When shoots do begin to pop up, daffodil experts say they benefit from a light dose of bulb fertilizer, scattered lightly around each clump or spread over the surface of naturalized areas. Fertilizer can burn new leaves, so if it gets on the foliage, wash it off right away.

Daffodil dreams? Time to plant bulbs

I love daffodils! We are planning our first garden in our new house and want to plant bulbs to come up next spring. When is the right time to plant?

Fall is typical bulb-planting time, and the cooler it is, the better, according to daffodil experts. Anne Owen of the Middle Tennessee Daffodil Society in Nashville (Zone 7a on the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone map) says the best time is when the soil is 52 – 54 degrees (usually November in Middle Tennessee). But you can buy bulbs and begin to dream about spring daffodils, and prepare the planting areas as soon as you like.

Daffodils enjoy well-drained soil, so if your soil needs to be amended with compost, do that before you plant. “Lighten heavy clay with perlite or sand, or use a raised bed soil mix,” Owen suggests. You can work soil conditioner into the soil – anything that will create a loose growing environment for the bulbs.

Daffodils grow best in full sun. Keep in mind, though, that they grow and bloom early, while there are fewer leaves on trees that will cast shade, so even a tree-canopied space may have more sun in late winter and early spring than you realize.

If you don’t want to go to the trouble to prepare beds for the bulbs, you can simply dig holes and drop the bulbs in the ground. Choose an area where you won’t need to mow until early summer, Owen says. Daffodil foliage should be left standing for many weeks after the bloom time is over, because this is when they’re gathering strength for the bulb to bloom again next spring.

Plant large bulbs (pointed end up!) about six inches apart. Bulbs can benefit from a dose of low-nitrogen fertilizer at planting time, Owen says. Water the bed well after planting.

Daffodils may be too crowded to bloom

Our bed of daffodils has been growing for many years and has a lot of thick foliage, but just a few blooms. They should probably be divided. Can I dig them up and replant them now? 

Daffodil bulbs divide themselves every year or two, and the clumps begin to compete for food and space. This will affect their blooming – they’ll begin to produce fewer and fewer flowers.
So, indeed, after bulbs have been growing in the same place for many years, they may need to be dug up and divided. When the foliage turns yellow later this spring (but before it disappears completely), dig the bulbs, separate them, and replant them about 6 inches apart, 6 inches deep.
This is prime-time for daffodils in Middle Tennessee, and a little extra care and attention this time of year can improve your daffodil planting over time.

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April in the garden: This could be the start of an especially satisfying – or challenging – spring. Check out the April Garden Calendar in The Tennessean and at Tennessean.com.

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A wise gardener once said…
In fact, there have been many wise gardeners, and they’ve said plenty of wise things.
“To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure, is the most perfect refreshment.” (Jane Austen, in her novel Mansfield Park)
Author Barbara Burn has collected many such bits of truth in The Little Green Book of Gardening Wisdom, just out this spring from Skyhorse Publishing. If you keep a garden, it’s a book that’s likely to have you nodding in agreement as you flip through the chapters.
“I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden. – Ruth Stout, “How to Have a Green Thumb Without An Aching Back” (1955).
Burns says in the introduction that she was surprised to discover that so many people have said so many things about gardening that deserve to be collected. “I concluded that the subject of growing things was of far more universal interest that I had anticipated, and a great deal more uplifting than all the volumes devoted to war and political history,” she writes.
“To create a garden is to search for a better world. In our effort to improve on nature, we are guided by a vision of paradise. Whether the result is a horticultural masterpiece or only a modest vegetable patch, it is based on the expectation of a glorious future. This hope for the future is at the heart of all gardening.” – Marina Schinz, in Visions of Paradise (1985).
There is also practical advice, in quotes from well-known gardeners past and present.
“I feel that one of the secrets of good gardening in always to remove, ruthlessly, any plant one doesn’t like… Scrap what does not satisfy and replace it by something that will.” – Vita Sackville-West’s Garden Book (1968).
“To get the best results you must talk to your vegetables.” – Prince Charles, in a television interview in 1986.
This book of wise words is not intended to use as a how-to-garden manual. “But it will, I hope, give every reader a sense of comfort to know that we are not alone when we are down on our hands and knees fighting with weeds or planting a row of seeds that will one day bring us great pleasure.”
The Little Green Book of Gardening Wisdom is available at Skyhorse Publishing in hardcover ($16.95) and as an ebook.

Keep your daffodils happy

After a long winter, the daffodils are finally beginning to bloom! Do they need any special care to make them bloom better?

Daffodils are generally easy-care spring bulbs, but a little extra care each year can increase and improve blooms over time. The American Daffodil Society offers these tips:

As daffodils bloom, topdress the soil with 0-10-10 or 0-0-50 fertilizer. Avoid high-nitrogen fertilizer, which may produce more foliage than flowers.

Daffodils need water while they’re growing, so if there is a dry spell, provide regular water until after blooming has stopped.

After daffodils bloom, leave the foliage until it turns yellow. This is the time the bulbs are gathering strength to bloom again next year.

The weather in late winter and early spring can be capricious, and it’s always possible that a hard frost or freeze can cause the stems to collapse, leaving the flowers drooping to the ground. If that happens, go ahead and cut some of the flowers and enjoy them in a vase indoors.

Vote for Cheekwood!

Nashville’s Cheekwood Botanical Garden & Museum of Art is one of the finalists for BestPublicGarden in USA Today Travel’s 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards list. Those who love and enjoy the beautiful gardens are encouraged to vote daily for Cheekwood in an online poll to help win the award.

Our beloved Middle-Tennessee favorite is in good company. The list, compiled by expert, author and lecturer Cindy Brockway, also includes ButchartGardens of Victoria, British Columbia; ChicagoBotanic Garden in Chicago, Illinois; HuntingtonBotanical   Garden in Los Angeles, California; LongwoodGardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania and United   StatesBotanical Garden in Washington, D.C., among others.

“Thanks to recent high-profile exhibitions, expanded programming, and recognition like the 10Best list, Cheekwood is seen more and more as a national treasure, right in our back yard,” says Cheekwood President and CEO Jane O. MacLeod. “We invite our community to help build our national reputation by voting for Cheekwood in the 10Best online poll.”

To vote for Cheekwood, visit 10best.com/awards/travel/best-public-garden between now and March 31. Vote early and often – yes, you can vote every day. As of this writing, Cheekwood ranked a very close third among the 20 finalists for total votes.