Happy Easter. In the gardening world that means a lot. We have always used Easter as the magic date to make your next move in the garden. This year Easter is unusually early so we can only hope that the old wives’ tale will hold true. I don’t remember a year in my life that we had a frost after Easter. I may be forgetting one, but it has always astounded me that somehow Mother Nature knows to call it quits on all this funny business after Easter.
Like last year, Easter was in mid-April and some years it’s even later. It seems no matter what the calendar date of Easter is that it is the date that holds true for the last frost. We have had some great weather this spring proceeding with the magic day. We have also had a few blips on the radar that kept some of us from putting out the tender stuff yet. Those plants that I consider tender for this time of year are basils, coleus, and most of the vegetables really don’t like those nighttime temperatures to be below 60°. I know a lot of the old-timers like to get their tomatoes out as early as possible and don’t mind that bronze leaf looks but I always thought it’s wiser to wait a week or two so we can skip that step. I do cheat and seed my vegetables in a greenhouse so that as soon as the magic date hits I can come straight to the garden with my peppers, tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers. I was looking at last year’s pictures, and I had already pulled a cucumber off the vine by last year’s Easter, which was April 19 more or less.
This year my seeds are just germinating from the pots, so I’ll be ready this week to go to the ground with that. Right now, I have my vegetable garden covered in cool hardy plants that are blooming like crazy. With the MRA garden tours coming up I wanted to play it safe in case we had a cold April. Right now, my fox gloves and poppies and snapdragons and pansies and a whole lot more like wallflowers are blooming like crazy. I don’t know if they’re gonna wait for that May 1 date, some will and some won’t. I will keep those plants that are beautiful for that time of year and any of those that are shot I will replace with vegetables that are already well on their way so everything will look just right. Mimi and I have been planting up a storm around the house and creating new beds as early as we can so that when the tour begins it will look as good as we know how.
It’s been a great time to add trees and evergreens to our yard as the weather has been perfect for a slow move in before the summer heat arrives. Luckily this year we have irrigation in our yard because it has been such a dry March, we’ve had to really turn the water on to keep our new plants healthy and alive. We have planted at least four pallets of Zoysia sod around the yard, which requires a lot of watering in the early stages.
Easter weekend is the biggest weekend in most garden centers in springtime. That’s the weekend when family comes in and people get a few days off to do a little winding down and planting in their yards. For that reason, we have stocked the nursery and the bedding plant areas heavily as we know how with bright colored petunias and bougainvillea and geraniums that just say Easter in Mississippi. At this point, we have everything that is ready in the greenhouse, which is upfront and ready for the Easter crowd.
This year will be different for Mimi and me because we have a lot of family coming from all over the place. Mia and Cody are coming in from South Carolina, Cody’s parents and grandmother are coming in from Philadelphia to visit for the weekend and I expect Max and Madeline and her mango size baby in her belly will be in and out over the course of the weekend. We’re excited to see everybody and to host everyone in our yard. We will have a garden party on Saturday so everyone can meet Mia’s new in-laws. They are a lot of fun and have never been to the south before, so we plan to show them the best stuff we have to show in Mississippi. We’re going to show them the garden center and hopefully spend a little downtime around the house.
On Easter day, Karen and Maur are having our whole family out to their beautiful home on the property that the Martinsons grew up on. Easter is always fun out there when all the grandkids and great grandkids show up for an Easter egg hunt and generally eat until we wind up in a coma. My sister and her husband, Ginny and Mark Weilenman are going to have our group out on their pontoon boat on the reservoir Monday afternoon so we can show them some of Mississippi’s finest shoreline. Ginny and Mark have a route that they like to take that allows us to peek into people’s backyards and see some of the early blooming stuff going on. This will be one of the highlights of our Easter weekend with our visitors as an afternoon sunset cruise on a pontoon boat is always a good thing.
Ginny and Mark are big gardeners too. They have done some additions in their yard that are just mind blowing, including a new house in their backyard for visitors to stay in when they come. They have three grandchildren that come to visit them as often as they can. The house that they built in the backyard allowed them to do some new landscape work back there that has turned out absolutely gorgeous. I can’t wait to see their yard as their style is one that really appeals to me with the plant material that they use. I don’t know how they will party in Philadelphia but that’s how we do it here, it should be fun.
Karen’s house will be something to see that weekend as she is also on the MRA Tour of Gardens and has gotten way ahead of me with her planting beautiful color all over their huge area that they garden in. I can’t wait to see how things have progressed since the last time I was there.
This is the time gardeners should be freshening up their soil with composted material like mushroom compost or whatever it is you’d like to use to freshen that soil up in your pots and the ground and in your vegetable garden. Once you have your soil nice and loose it’s wise to go ahead and mulch that rather than mulch after you do your planting, it’s just a lot easier that way.
The garden centers around town are all looking their very best right now in hopes that someone will find what they’re looking for when they come in for the Easter rush. I’m hoping to do a little garden center shopping next week myself to see if some folks around here have something I’m looking for that I don’t have. I’ve got my hoses ready with watering wands and breakers at all my spigots, my irrigation zones are tested and ready for come what may. I just put my leftover firewood back into the barn last week hoping that will make it the last time we need firewood.
This is a great time to find those trees and shrubs and get them planted because you will probably get a little help from Mother Nature with some rain as we normally get in April and sometimes even May. It’s okay to wait longer, it’s just not as easy on you or the plants to do it when it’s so hot.
The grass is greening up now so it may be time to fertilize your lawn and if your azaleas have finished blooming, it will be time to fertilize them. Remember not to fertilize your azaleas or anything that blooms in the springtime until after they have bloomed, fertilization will sometimes cause them to drop their blooms. After they bloom you can also prune them back a little bit and shape them up. Remember, they have just exerted a lot of energy so it’s nice to give them a little treat. I like to use a slow-release fertilizer that is organic. The fertilizer I use is Espoma, I find that one to be one of the good ones and easy to get.
I would imagine that people who plant bulbs are seeing some action now, I have seen some tulips already up, and I have some calla lilies that are starting to show some signs of life in my yard. This is a good time to look at the drainage situation in your yard when these big rains begin to occur and figure out what you need to do to divert water in the direction it needs to go. Too much water standing in your yard can cause problems that are just hard to beat. It may be that your problem is big enough that you need to call a professional to help you get that drainage headed towards the street or wherever it is appropriate to send a bunch of water so you can have a beautiful garden.
I am hoping your garden season goes well with the plan or without a plan, either way is fun to me. The fun is getting out and shopping the Northside’s real garden centers and meeting the folks that work there that are passionate about what they do and have so much information to help you along with. We are lucky to have so many top-quality nurseries in our state, do yourself a favor and go visit some, you will be pleasantly surprised at what we can do. I hope you find the Golden Egg this year.
