Spring is coming —sooner than you think! Now is the time to be planning for the rest of the year.
Do you want to make changes to your garden? If you do, this is the time for drawing maps of what you want and where you want it. This is the time for plant and flower catalogs, for looking at sun patterns and shade, noting where our (infrequent) snows stay longest. The plants will appreciate your being aware of the microclimates in your yard. Here’s where you try to remember where the sun beats the hottest, where plants have gasped for water or thrived on neglect. All these things need to be considered so that the money you spend on plants is satisfying because they flourish and bloom.
Once you have your design or just simple additions to a ‘finished’ landscape, it’s time to remember that plants, like people, need to be fed. Amending the soil can be done now. Mushroom compost is a good, inexpensive mulch to be worked into the upper inches of soil. Liquid fertilizers should wait a couple of months until plants are awake and absorbing nutrients.
The last thing now is a dormant oil spray to eliminate bag worms before they begin chewing on new leaves.