There are plenty of things to do for your garden, even when there's still snow on the ground. Late winter and early spring is the best time for these activities:
Prune trees
- Trees to prune now: Oaks, apple, crabapple, maple, birch, honeylocust, showy mountain ash, hawthorne, butternut, walnut, ironwood, blue beech.
- Note some trees like birch, maple and walnut may drip sap from the cuts. That's ok - it's a natural occurrence.
- Tools for pruning: hand pruner, lopper, hand saw, polesaw, chainsaw. Tools with telescoping handles are handy for reaching branches in the canopy.
- Read more: Pruning trees and shrubs
Start some seeds
- Start seeds that take a long time to germinate or grow to planting size: geraniums, pansies, wax begonias, leeks, onions, alpine strawberry, browallia, clarkia, dusty miller, fountain grass, impatiens, larkspur, lobelia, nemesia, stocks, torenia, celery.
- Use peat pots or other biodegradable pots for starting transplant-sensitive clarkia and nemesia. You can rip off the bottoms of biodegradable pots and plant them right in the ground.
- Plant tubers like begonias in a flat of peat moss or vermiculite for bloom in June.
- Move plants you have been overwintering into a sunny window.
- Cut off dead leaves and stems.
- Repot if needed and start watering.
- Wait till fertilize until you see new growth emerge.
- Read more: Starting Seeds Indoors. Watch a video: Starting Seeds
Clean equipment and tools
- Pots and saucers: Clean off soil residue and wash in hot, soapy water, inside and out.
- Stakes, cages, small trellises, pruning tools:
- Use a rag or old towel and wipe all surfaces with isopropyl or ethyl alcohol (70-100%).
- A 10% bleach solution is fine for non-metal items.
- Alcohol is better for metal as it won't cause rusting.
- Sharpen pruning tools with a sharpening stone, or have them professionally sharpened. Google "tool sharpening" for services in your area.
- Use a file to sharpen the blades of spades, shovels, trowels, garden forks, and other digging tools.
- Take this opportunity to inspect handles for cracks or splits, lose hardware and handles. Repair them now before you really need them.
Beat the rush: Get a soil test done
Spring is a busy time for the University Soil Testing Lab, so submitting a soil test now can almost guarantee a quicker turn-around. Even though there is still snow on the ground, you may be able to collect a soil sample as the frost is not as deep in the ground this winter.
Follow the guidelines for collecting a sample, filling out the form and sending it in to the Soil Testing Laboratory.