Tips on Soil Preparation & Spring Garden Chore List
For the love of Humus
In any type of garden, soil preparation is everything and the key to your success in gardening.
Be sure to incorporate lots of rotted organic matter (humus) into your soil. This can be accomplished by turning under chopped leaves or grass clippings, aged compost or manure, or growing cover crops (green manures). Humus is the soil that acts as a sponge holding onto water and keeping it in the root zone for the plants to use. Humus also improves soil texture, structure, and drainage. In addition to hummus, it may be necessary to add lime; a simple Ph test will determine this. A balanced Ph releases locked-up nutrients in the soil and makes them available to plants. If your soil has poor drainage i.e. lots of water standing on the surface for a long time after it rains, then you may have to actually add sand or gravel to your beds. This may seem strange, especially on L.I. where we are basically on a sandbar, but I have found this to be extremely beneficial when trying to grow Mediterranean-type plants, especially herbs, alpines, succulents, heaths, and heathers, small bulbs, and other rock garden type plants. One easy solution is to actually mulch around the plants with sand, gravel, or oyster shells- this has been proven in university studies to increase the production of lavender by 400%!
The breaking down of the humus provides nutrients in the soil. This happens slowly, however, and may need to be supplanted by good balanced organic fertilizer. The low-analysis, steady release, and gentle non-burning action feeds the soil as well as the plants and enhances microbial activity in the soil.
Make plans now to divide or add some new reliable late summer and fall-blooming perennials like asters, grasses, Japanese anemones, Callicarpa, late-blooming mums (like Hillside Pink Sheffield), aconites & lilies. They’ll be bigger, healthier, and give a longer show of bloom if planted in spring rather than at their normal bloom time.
Clean old mulch, leaves, debris &dead plant tops out of beds, cut back hard any grasses or semi-woody perennials that need rejuvenation, i.e. Buddleia, Caryopteris, some Clematis
Renovate overgrown or outdated garden areas by lifting, dividing, or discarding existing perennials and taking the opportunity to heavily amend the soil with well-rotted humus of some sort (leaf mold, compost, manure) plus any soil amendments needed (fertilizers, lime, trace elements).
Fertilize emerging bulbs with gentle, natural Bulb-Tone Fertilizer and amend bare soil areas around the bulb clusters with compost to add later blooming annuals, tropicals, or perennials when the spring show is over. What? You forgot to plant bulbs! Come check out our selection of potted, blooming, and ready to plant unusual bulbs.
