Spring Garden Prep – Simple Steps to Get the Garden Ready for Growing
6 Steps to Prepare Your Spring Garden
FINALLY! The snow is melting, the daylight hours are getting longer, and spring is just around the corner! It’s time to prepare your spring garden for your best growing season yet!
Before you know it, sunshine and warm weather will be here and your plants will be taking off like crazy! Spring is the best time to set the stage for a wonderful yard, gorgeous beds, and beautiful planters – ready for new plants!
As soon as I pack up my Christmas tree in December, I already start thinking about my spring garden! Since my yard is usually buried under a foot of snow, I GET PLANNING! I do this in my garden journal – read all about how I created a simple, cheap Garden Journal that changed my life! I also organize my seeds and make plans for buying new flowers – especially dahlias! (Swan Island Dahlias is wise and sends their new dahlia catalogs the day after Christmas.)
Then I wait (and wait and wait!) and make plans to start my seedlings. Check out my never-fail guide to starting seedlings here. And finally the months start to warm and it’s time to get outside!
When the weather finally warms, I follow these steps in early spring (February, March and April) so my plants can grow happily and healthily in the best conditions.
1. Manicure Your Plants
The spring garden is notoriously messy. Fall and winter are brutal on plants, so now is a great time to give your plants some attention. In case you didn’t get to it in the fall, now is a great time to trim back certain perennials that grow from the ground up. Perhaps you have some dead branches on your salvia plants or unsightly mounds on your California poppies. Trim those babies back to make room for the new growth from underneath in your spring garden.
A word of caution here (I’ve learned this one from experience). Don’t go crazy without doing your homework! Know your species and whether the new growth grows on existing growth, or starts from the ground up. Example: some clematis grow on existing grown, others start from the ground up each year. Do a simple Pinterest or Internet search on “pruning _____” for a quick tutorial. Your spring garden will thank you!
2. Clean Up the Winter Mess
Leaves from the fall, pine needles from winter and other debris accumulate over the cold winter months. Or perhaps you have some plants that you mulched heavily to protect them over winter.
Spring is a great time to clean up from the fall and winter, making room for new growth, warm soil and lots of sunshine.
Rake underneath and around your plants to give them breathing (growing!) room and prevent mildew and weed-growing conditions. Double bonus! Add your collected debris to your compost pile to take advantage of the decomposition that has already started!
Cleaning around your existing plants reveals how much room you have for NEW plants, too! Because isn’t adding new plants always the goal?! 🙂
3. Transplant and Relocate Your Existing Plants
My spring garden is a work-in-progress during February, March and April. It’s when I do most of my transplanting and relocating.
Is there a better home for that shade-loving hosta or that sun-loving lupine? How about that huge iris that’s creeping into your paver walkway? Now is the PERFECT time to find a new home for your favorite plants.
Although plants are still pretty forgiving in the spring, use these tricks to make sure they survive the move. Keep their root ball as intact as possible to prevent them from going into major shock; don’t shake off all the existing dirt. It’s also wise not to overwater in the new location. Give them a sip and start watering when you do everything else. I also add a B1 Starter plant food to give them a good launch, especially if I’m moving roses. I love this B1 Starter! It successfully transplanted 5 heirloom roses from a neighbor’s home to my yard.
4. Update Your Hardscape
Spring is the perfect time to change up that hardscape and create more dimension in your yard.
Have you considered adding another bed to your spring garden? Moving rocks, adding a paver walkway, or changing your hardscape? Spring is a perfect time to do this! Whether you do it yourself or have someone come in and do the work for you, now is the time to send your beds so that you can easily drop in plants in the coming warming months.
If doing manual labor isn’t in the cards for you, fear not! We’ve had great success with putting “Gigs” on our local Craigslist and allowing people to bid on the jobs. I can’t tell you how much great work we’ve had done for competitive prices from people who are licensed and bonded. Give it a shot!
Do a simple search for “garden design” on Pinterest or Google if you’re looking for inspiration. There are lots of awesome ideas for DIY designs, right at your fingertips.
5. Add More Dirt and Amend Your Soils
Now is a great time to order more topsoil and amend your soil! We have a large yard so we have compost/topsoil blends shipped in by the truckload. If you have a smaller space with which are working, purchased bags of top quality topsoil and mix that in with your native soil. This helps ensure your plants have the best media in which to grow.
6. Plant Foods and Systemics
(If you don’t use chemicals on your plants, then skip this section!!!)
I don’t use a lot of chemicals, pesticides, herbicides or fungicides in my garden; certainly not on edibles, my native garden, or wildflower patches. However, I have a few plants that are dear to my heart and I can’t resist. Those are my dahlias and roses. If you choose to use chemicals on your plants, then Spring is the perfect time to add your systemic chemicals. This is also when I feed my plants to ensure healthy, huge blooms all season long. Compost is a wonderful plant food, especially if it’s homemade!
You may need different fertilizers depending on the plants in your yard; learn what each plant loves best and give them just what they need to have a great blooming season.
Don’t Forget the Birds and Pollinators!
Nothing says spring garden like the return of songbirds and hummingbirds to the backyard. I’m a passionate bird watcher and love to create habitats to invite birds to the yard.
Read how to attract hundreds of hummingbirds to your backyard with these simple steps.
And check out how I create a songbird paradise in my spring garden here with these simple DIY steps.
Get Busy Gardening!
Spring is a wonderful time to set the stage for a bountiful Summer and Autumn. Whether you grow from seeds or grow from starts, I hope you have an amazing growing season and you learn a lot about your yard! Try these simple steps and get that yard ready for your best growing season yet!
Take care, and happy planting!
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