It’s the merry month of May, the magic month for gardeners! The Yorkton and District Horticultural Society has these great events coming up, so get out your calendars and circle the dates! The next regular meeting will be on Wednesday, May 18 at 7:00 p.m. in the Sunshine Room at SIGN on North Street; our special guest will be Mr. D’Arcy Schenk, retired horticulturalist from the U of R, speaking to us about “Trees and Shrubs For City Yards”. There are so many new yards waiting to be landscaped, and so many established yards that might need rejuvenating, so we can all benefit from D’Arcy’s knowledge and experience! Come out and get some new ideas and inspiration!
Then, on Friday, May 27, we’ll be having our Spring Plant & Bulb Sale, 9:30 a.m. till 5 p.m. at the Parkland Mall. This is a one day sale, and you know the drill: be there early in the day for best selection, especially if you are looking for certain plants! Enthusiastic gardeners will be on hand in case you have any questions!
It’s been quite a spring, hasn’t it? It melts, it snows. It melts, it snows. But all in all, we had a good winter, and now we can look forward to this new gardening season! All through March, as the snow receded and then came back, I was out in the garden every day, looking around and observing what was happening with the perennials. You were probably doing the same!
Now we can actually start with spring cleaning! This is a very satisfying task: we see results right away, and it is a joyful feeling to see the tender shoots of perennials appearing and reaching for the sun!
What’s on your “spring-cleaning” list? The first thing we always do is rake up the beds, removing leaves and debris that have accumulated over the winter. Do this very gently so as not to disturb any new growth. At this time, we also cut down any old, dead stems from last year. We always throw all this debris away; it is dusty and might harbor some diseased leaves, so away it goes!
This is the time when we have to practice the virtue of patience! It might be tempting to get out your secateurs and start trimming shrubs like roses down to the new growth. Don’t do it just yet; give the shrub a little more time to adjust to coming out of dormancy. And if you have a patch with perennials that may not have appeared yet, or don’t quite look like they made it over the winter, give it time! Don’t march in there with a garden fork and start digging! I could tell you stories…especially about plants where I carelessly tossed the labels to mark the spot and did not put in a new marker, as my sweet hubby advised! Bless him; he would just stand there shaking his head as I hurriedly tried to re-bury things that I accidentally dug up! So be patient!
And another thing to remember is not to overdo it the first time out! We’re all so anxious to be out in our gardens, and those first gardening days quickly introduce us to muscles we forgot we had! So take it slow, take frequent breaks, and don’t get chilled. My Sweet-Pea loved, loved, loved her garden, and just beamed when spring came and she could be outside with her plants! She’d come in to the house very tired after a long gardening day, but she always said it was a “happy tired”. Isn’t that true! We might be exhausted, but we’re happy!
So as we rev ourselves up for gardening, and start looking forward to the new adventure of this year’s garden and containers, I wish you days of being “happy tired”! Have a great week!
