Flower Garden Lovers

End of April Chores in the Flower Garden

If you haven't started on your flower gardening chores, now is the time to get a head start on those weeds that like to pop up in the spring just like the grass starts greening, trees are budding, and perennials are flowering too. In some places you have probably already begun your weeding or if not, better get started very soon as weather and your schedule permit. If you are able, use the hoe to make you weeding work a little easier. But you can not weed with a hoe too close to your lovely plants and must start hand-weeding to avoid injury to them. Not a real enjoyable task to some but put on some music you love, a large hat, and enjoy the sun and spring weather.

If you have sown some annual seeds, you probably need to start thinning now or very soon. If the first thinning doesn't leave them far enough apart, then a second must be done. For small dwarf plants, six inches from plant to plant is sufficient. For larger plants nine inches or a foot should do. You must not consider them in their present stage but how they will be as mature plants this summer with full leaves, more stems and loaded with flowers. There must be room for all that growth.

Perhaps you have wintered some pots of geraniums or fuchsias indoors and are planning to plant them back into your outdoor flower garden. It is probably too early to do this now, depending on where you live, but they must be prepared for this eventual planting outdoors or "hardened". Set them outside in their pots in a sunny place but not one that will get too hot. It is best if you start with just a few hours a day and work your way up to the full day. Remember that the pots may dry out quicker now they are outside in the sun. Keep them adequately watered. Don't drown them though.

If it is likely you will receive a frost at night, either bring them back inside or cover them with a piece of cloth. You can make a tent by having four stakes or dowels spaced evenly around the pot and then placing the cloth over it all like a tent. This keeps the cloth from touching the plant. If it does indeed freeze, this keeps the cold from traveling straight through to the plant. The air between the cloth and plant acts a bit as insulation and the cloth keeps the frost off the plant.

If, however, there is a chance of strong cold wind coming up in the night, your flowering plants will be safer indoors, be it a shed or your home. An unheated shed is preferable as you work their outdoor time up until they are outside all day. (This all assumes you do not live in an area where an overnight blizzard is a possibility. If so, then you do want the plants in a climate-controlled area at night.) As they become hardened and the weather improves, this will become less and less a necessity.

One last note for the novice flower gardener. If you have some snowdrops or daffodils or whatever that grow from bulbs, you will notice that as the flowers go by, the leaves tend to grow very fast and perhaps become "untidy". You may think that you can just cut the leaves down now the flowers are gone. Do not do this. Simplest explanation is that they are providing the plant with the nutrition, conveyed to and stored up in the bulb, that will allow the flower to burst forth in all its glory next year. So those leaves are very important. Wait till they "die" down and then you can cut them if the mess in your flower garden is just too much for your taste.

© 2005, Sandra Dinkins-Wilson

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© 2005, Sandra Dinkins-Wilson. Find more articles for Flower Garden Lovers at our informative website, http://flowergardenlovers.com.
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