Prepare Your Garden for Spring

Educator Melissa points out flowering species in JBENC’s Pollinator Garden

Winter is a time for planning. You can use your time indoors to think about what challenges you and your garden faced last season and research ways you can improve this year. Think about what colors you might have missed, if there were any bare spots, or if there were any plants that did not do well in your garden. Some native plants you can consider are Flowering dogwood, Northern spicebush, Switchgrass, Butterflyweed, False indigo, New York aster, Anise hyssop, Creeping phlox, and Cinnamon fern. Once established, native plants can often thrive with less maintenance since they are better adapted to our climate.

If you have any returning perennials, plants that grow back every year from their winter dormancy, it is important to add a layer of mulch or compost on top of their soil. This protects young perennials from winter’s harsher temperatures and frost. You can use materials you may already own like cardboard, multiple sheets of newspaper, or wood chips. Mulches can also be used again in the summer to retain soil moisture and restrict weed seed germination, so remember to save your paper! Composting also improves soil structure, water holding capacity, and adds organic matter back into the soil; it is even argued to be more important than the act of planting!