September is one of my favorite months— I look over my various perennial beds making decisions; some lethal, some regenerative, some purely aesthetic, others simply to satisfy a whim or an unusual must have plant. The tired, spent plants have either died back, or been removed. Shrubs have been pruned and the garden has been tidied up— all before I take the fall planting leap.

Now’s the time to see what needs —or doesn’t need— to be done to keep the perennial beds healthy, always keeping in mind the need for winter interest, spring rebirth, summer and fall blooms. This is when my imagination takes over.

It’s time to move the iris’ and the peonies if they need more space. Transplant the tree peony that’s just not getting the right amount of sun or plant some new hydrangeas —Pinky Winky paniculata is one of my favorites—time to make all those changes you just didn’t get to over the summer and plant new plants you’ve never tried before. This is an especially good time find some bargains at your local nurseries.

Best of all, it’s time to plant spring bulbs.

As I surf the internet trolling for new enticing bulbs, I look for plants that promise to excite as they start to poke through the ground. I try to imagine combinations that will promote continual blooms—always a challenge!  What can I plant under that tree?  What plants need to be taken out all together and what can I try in their place? These are but a few of the questions roiling around my head as I try to decide just what to do. And so for me, “these are the best of times and the worst of times.”

There are many, many bulbs to choose from—a succession of early, middle and late blooming daffodils, maybe some tulips, or species tulips or both? Maybe.

This year the bulb whose attraction, for me, is as strong as that of two magnets circling one another, is the amazing variety (think size, color, even shape) of Alliums —any or all of which would be a stunner in your garden beds. There are many, many plants to fall in love with, some lose their charm eventually, yet alliums never disappoint. The sheer versatility of these spring flowering bulbs, the enormity of their visual impact always leaves me in awe.

Alliums and Ornamental grasses, photo from the blog; Thinking Outside the Boxwood, thinkingoutsidetheboxwood.com

Alliums can be used en masse, in smaller groups clumped amid lower growing plants, or scattered among later blooming perennials whose foliage will hide the alliums’ leaves as they dry out and disappear. It’s sheer joy to see these globes of color standout above other early bloomers, mixed in with ornamental grasses or erect against a backdrop of shrubbery.

The genus Allium, the Latin word for ‘garlic,’ includes, the onion, garlic, chives, scallion, and the leek. The many Allium species (260 to as many as 979), offer colorful, long-lasting blooms that are standouts in the early-summer garden. Alliums are deer resistant and those pesky chipmunks will generally ignore them.

Here are just three stand outs from the many gorgeous and unusual allium bulbs to choose from:

Allium bulgaricum (Nectaroscordum); Common Name: Sicilian Honey Lily. Also known as Nectaroscordum siculum var. bulgaricum. The creamy, bell-shaped blooms are tinged green and pink as they hang from baseball-sized flowerheads. The gray-green leaves take on interesting spiral twists and the papery, seedpods turn upwards as they mature. Bulgaricum will self sow.

Allium Gladiator. Large lavender-blue florets with a sweet pungent scent create tight, globe-shaped heads the size of a softball atop 3-4ft stems and is great with Bearded or Siberian Iris.

Allium Globemaster, image from Longfield Gardens, longfieldgardens.com

Allium Globemaster. This is the biggest Allium yet. Small, silvery purple florets form 8–10 inch flower heads. ‘Globemaster’ gets its size from its A. cristophii parent, (similar to the A. schubertii below). The florets are packed more densely, creating an imposing and brilliantly colored globe. The globemaster blooms in late spring.

Allium Schubertii, image Sarah Raven blog/ sarahraven.com

The genus Allium, remarkable—often strange and always a knockout—belongs in every perennial garden. You’ll find one to suit every whim, to fill any space, to enhance any landscape and you will have no regrets… just plant them and see!

Featured image; allium-karativense-ivory-queen, photo from John Scheepers catalogue

Location  |  Cary East (Gifford) Parking Lot
2917 Sharon Turnpike (Route 44), Millbrook, NY

For more information and more interesting events being offered go to www.caryinstitute.org/

For those of you who are interested in reflecting on the more historical and philosophical aspects of The Garden:

Wednesday, April 2, 2014  |  7:00 p.m.  |  Olin, Room 102
The Dean of Bard College presents
Noble Savages and English Gardeners: KULTURKRITIK from Rousseau to Goethe   Presented by Franz Kempf

One of the grand designs of the Enlightenment is the transition from the French Garden to the English Garden. With its inherent “culture-nature” juxtaposition, the transition is closely linked to Kulturkritik. Redefining the binary opposition as a “both … and” relationship, Kulturkritik has emerged in recent scholarship as the discursive and self-critical mode of reflection of the Enlightenment. As such, it provides the theoretical framework for my exploration of the English Garden as a utopia and dystopia. Since the English Garden – and its philosophical, political, anthropological, and aesthetic derivatives – figures prominently in Rousseau, Schiller, and Goethe, my argument draws on their works, chief among them the two Discourses, the Reveries, the New Eloise, the Elective Affinities, Faust’s monologues and the last scene of the second part of Faust. There will be a reception at 6:30 p.m. in the Olin Atrium prior to the event. For more information: contact Julie Cerulli at 845–758-7490, or e-mail jcerulli@bard.edu.

Ulster County Cornell Cooperative, Garden Day:
Edibles & Ornamentals   |  Saturday, April 12
SUNY Ulster, Stone Ridge 8:30 a.m.‑4:15 p.m.

This one-day gardening extravaganza is a community educational program presented by the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County Master Gardener Program.

Registration is in the Vanderlyn Hall Cafeteria Entrance—watch for signs! Hot beverages and breakfast items will be available at our Bake Sale. Bring your soil samples & drop them off at the Soil Testing Table. There will be free informative handouts, gardening catalogs and magazines to take home. Everyone will gather in the Student Lounge at 9:00 am to begin

The marketplace, with many local garden vendors, will be open during the lunch break. Please note, most vendors aren’t able to accept credit cards at Garden Day (cash or checks OK). Master Gardener volunteers will also be on hand to answer gardening questions, perform free soil tests & plant diagnosis.

Pre-registration is $35.00 per person if received on or before April 4, 2014. This entitles each participant to select up to 4 separate classes throughout the day. Registration at the door will be $40.00

Keynote speaker Fredda Merzon:  Garden of Unearthly Delights
Fredda is an amateur gardener turned metal sculptor who learned to weld six years ago. She brings a unique perspective to art in the garden by creating sculptures, which mimic the work of Mother Nature—using found metal objects. She has exhibited her work in 11 shows in New York and Maine. Fredda grows her live and imagined garden in Troy, New York.

Here’s just a sample of the classes being offered:

Daylillies, The Ideal Perennial
An Introduction To Growing your own Mushrooms
Managing Pests Organically
Aromatic, Flavorful Hops
Weeds– An Ongoing Struggle

To download a registration form and for a more complete list of classes go to cceulster.org or ulstermg.org and if you have questions, please call 340‑3990.
SUNY Ulster is located on Cottekill Rd., just off Route 209 in Stone Ridge.

Hudson Valley Garden Fair
Hudson Valley Garden Association presents their second annual fundraising event, Hudson Valley Garden Fair, on Saturday, May 3rd, 2014 from 10 am-4 pm at Montgomery Place, Red Hook, NY.

What better way to welcome Spring than with a day of plant shopping, garden education and inspiration in a historic estate setting? Gardeners of all levels and interests will be amazed at just how many garden businesses and organizations call the Hudson Valley home.

Featuring
– Local & Specialty Garden Vendors
– Lecture: Heaven is a Garden
– FREE Garden Demonstrations
– Local Gardening Organizations
– Historic Garden & Landscape Tour

For more information about the fair go to www.hvgardenfair.com/
For information about Hudson Valley Garden Association go to www.hvga.org/

The Beatrix Farrand Garden Association in Hyde Park

Upcoming Lectures
www.beatrixfarrandgardenhydepark.org/events

Nearby places (well, not so nearby but even their websites will get your garden juices flowing) to visit, will help quench your thirst for something green.

Jan Harrison, “Big Cat-Mountain Lion with Foliage Fur,” 2011, pastel and ink on rag paper

Taken from the Byrdcliffe Guild’s website:

For the first time in the history of art, the animals look back at us in art imagery. Their gaze is direct, a direct address, a one-to-one relationship. The animals are fully present in all their living wholeness, vulnerability, intensity, and even ferocity. They are their very own being rather than merely there for our admiration or projected needs. The artists in this exhibition are in the vanguard of a new movement, which by resonating with the inner life of animals, is opening up a vital dialogue with our fellow sentient beings. Curated by Sara Lynn Henry. Sara is an independent curator and art writer concerned with art, nature and science matters. She is also a Professor of Art History, Emerita, and N.E.H. Distinguished Teaching Professor of Humanities, Emerita at Drew University.

The artists in the exhibition are: Terri Amig, Catherine Chalmers, Sue Coe, Lee Deigaard, Mary Frank, Jan Harrison, Gillian Jagger, Isabella Kirkland, David Marell, Gwynn Murrill, Christy Rupp, Janice Tieken, Eva van Rijn.

Exhibition Dates: February 22 — March 24, 2013
Opening Reception on Saturday, February 23, 4:00 — 6:00 pm
Artists Gallery Talk: February 23, 2013, 3:00 pm
Location: BYRDCLIFFE Kleinert/James Center for the Arts, 36 Tinker Street, Woodstock, NY
Gallery Hours: Friday through Sunday, 12:00 — 6:00 pm, or by appointment on Tuesday—Friday, 10:00 am — 5:00 pm

Exhibition Event: Introducing the Animals We Live With — Saturday, March 23, 2013, 3:00 — 4:30 pm, A discussion with the audience by Curator Sara Lynn Henry and Naturalist Spider Barbour about the animals we live with, in our back yards, our neighborhoods, on our farms, up the mountains, and in our homes. Who are they? What is our experience with them? How do we see them and they us? Which are increasing and which decreasing in presence? In the process, we shall also introduce the animals in the works of art and see what they have to say. Questions about animal consciousness and emotions will come up. The event is a collaboration between Byrdcliffe and the Woodstock Land Conservancy.

Featured image, Gillian Jagger, “White Cow,” 2009, pastel on paper

The Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, established in 1939, is a multi-­‐arts membership organization serving the Mid–Hudson Valley. Our Kleinert/James Center for the Arts hosts and presents local and national performing, visual, and literary artists. Byrdcliffe offers a variety of classes and is steward of the Byrdcliffe Art Colony founded in 1903, now home to an international Artist in Residence program and listed on the National Register of Historic Places

“Dear Mother Nature”, Dorsky Museum

Although we have published several articles covering this unique exhibit, I realize now as the last weekend approaches, that much more can be said about the scope of these portentous works of art. I cannot begin to speak to everything that was interesting about this exhibit; every piece was arresting, some haunting, some clever, all were unusual. Each artist had his/her own vision of what a message to Mother Nature should say or could be. Some are indelibly imprinted on my mind.

Upon entering the gallery you see an array of installations, but the first thing that literally grabbed my eye—I’m told it was a favorite among the students and visitors alike—was a startling flutter of cascading origami cranes interspersed with black handled scissors that seemed to pour out from somewhere high in the recesses of the gallery’s ceiling, Claire Lambe’s Rock-Paper-Scissors.

Claire Lambe, “Rock-Paper-Scissors”

Claire Lambe demonstrates the Japanese art of paper folding

Each artist was asked to write a “note” to Mother Nature to accompany their piece.

The installation plays on the Japanese “Legend of the Crane” where if one folds a thousand origami cranes, one creates the circumstances for a wish to be granted. The cranes have been added to the artwork over the period of the exhibition with the intention that, by the end, there will be the requisite number for the wish to be granted – The egg rests on a plinth that is 5.5 feet high by three inches diameter. The third element in the composition is the scissors which also have a bird-like quality but add a disquieting aspect to what would otherwise be a benign design.

 

One person’s wish can be another person’s nightmare, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a good example as are the fears of the opposing sides of this election — at a phone bank that I recently took part in for Obama, one caller got the response of someone calling Obama the devil. And of course the even more local issue of Fracking where some landowners see it as a route to economic solvency while others of us see it as the route to the desertification of our area — those farmers might say, for instance, that Mother Nature has given them this natural resource on their land and it is a gift to them while the rest of us refute that. So, one way to consider the role of the scissors is in the light of wishes often having a sharp edge wrapped into their DNA.

The cranes and scissors are in opposition to each other and, although the scissors seem to be predators, it is ambiguous as to whether the egg is the property of the cranes or the scissors. The title references not only the materials that comprise the installation but also the game of chance that is life, and posterity. —Claire Lambe

View of gallery with Jim Holls “Low Lying Clouds” in the foreground.

Jim Holl, detail, “Low Lying Clouds”

Jim Holl’s installation, Low Lying Clouds challenges our perceptions and asks the eternal questions…

I offer you a sampling of the quandaries that humans have been contemplating since ancient times, and that we have not yet solved. Are we big or are we small? Is that a forest beneath my feet or just a bed of moss? If there appears no horizon, are the clouds high or low?… —Jim Holl

 

Christy Rupp’s oversized microscopic creatures demonstrate natures’ diversity and ingenuity. Her capacity for self-healing…

Christy Rupp, detail, “Microscopic Filter Feeders, Residing in Gulf of Mexico”

Christy Rupp, “Microscopic Filter Feeders, Residing in Gulf of Mexico”

I offer you evidence that artists not only admire your observable assets, we also recognize the teeming world of invisible micro-organisms that you have created to nourish and sustain the Earth… —Christy Rupp

 

And Ilse Schreiber-Noll apologizes as she admonishes us for our recklessness and lack of reverence for the earth we’ve been entrusted with…

Ilse Schreiber-Noll, “Oil Spill Book III”

I give you this book to express my commitment and promise that I am no longer going to take you for granted. With my work “Oil Spill” I offer my deep apologies to you for what we are doing and what we have done…—Ilse Schreiber-Noll

 

Ilse Schreiber-Noll, “Oil Spill Book III”

These are just a sampling of the depth and diversity of the artists represented in the exhibit. Forty-two artists participated. All of the work was created specifically for this exhibit and one wonders how they will fare in a different venue. Dear Mother Nature ends on Sunday November 6. If you’ve already been to the gallery, you might want to go back one last time. I returned several times myself and each time discovered something I either hadn’t seen, or hadn’t fully comprehended. If you haven’t been to this exhibit, it is an absolute must see.

Barbara Bash, detail “Found” and “Garden Networks”

Dear Mother Nature: Hudson Valley Artists 2012
Curated by Linda Weintraub

June 23 — November 4, 2012
Alice and Horace Chandler and North Galleries

www.newpaltz.edu/museum

MUSEUM HOURS:
Wednesday – Sunday: 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

LOCATION:
State University of New York at New Paltz
1 Hawk Drive, New Paltz, NY 12561
845.257.3844

All photography by the author.

Dear Mother Nature—curated by Linda Weintraub— is a stunning indictment, an apology, an offering of gratitude, and a cry for change, expressed through the distinct vision of forty-two Hudson Valley artists.

I knew as soon as I stepped through the doors to the main gallery space, that I would be back to revisit these works. I was immediately entranced. A mere walk through— amid the chatter of a large enveloping crowd—wouldn’t do. Why? Because, this is that rare exhibit that requires the viewer to truly spend time with the art, to engage, to consider what the artist is saying, to participate.

Main Gallery, Dorsky Museum

The sheer scope of this exhibit speaks to the diversity of our environment and to both the destructive force and creative nature inherent in our world and our selves. How often can one walk into a gallery to find oneself surrounded by work that compels you to look, to concentrate, to search for meaning? This exhibit demands that you look and asks you to see.

Ilse Schreiber-Noll’s “Oil Spill Book III”

Ilse Schreiber-Noll’s “Oil Spill Book III”

Ilse Schreiber-Noll’s “Oil Spill Book III”, asks that you gently turn the pages of a book of detritus left by an oil spill —Maria Cristina Brusca’s “Four Milagros” invites you to leave an offering in the form of a “milagro”, [milagro means miracle in Spanish].

Four Milagros, Maria Cristina Brusca

I was very curious about how the concept for this show evolved. The creativity exhibited here must surely be the result of a uniquely articulate voice. One whose vision challenged a large group of artists to engage in a conversation with Mother Nature:

“Is that all?” were the words that led to the curating of the “Dear Mother Nature” exhibition, as well as the writing of my latest book, “TO LIFE! Eco Art In Pursuit of a Sustainable Planet”. These words were uttered by Skip Schuckmann, a near-stranger at the time, when I told him I had just acquired raw land in the Hudson Valley, New York and planned to live there the rest of my life. I described the rolling hills, wildflower meadow, forest stream, and a view of the Catskill Mountains to the West. My description culminated in an exuberant, “It’s so beautiful!” His question, “Is that all? Is it just beautiful?” triggered a journey of discovery that ultimately led me to refashion my personal life style and redirect my professional pursuits. Both morphed as I discovered that beauty was not ‘all’ the site afforded. Its visual qualities were gradually enhanced by previously unrecognized assets. Its botanical and zoological populations, for example, performed wondrous feats of resilience and set exemplary standards of resourcefulness. Over time, the resources that sustain these species sustain me and my family. At first, we harvested the stone, moss, berries, acorns, deer that were available for harvesting. Then, optimizing the productivity of this habitat became a life mission. Water management, soil creation, food production, animal husbandry, composting, fencing, terracing, winter gardening are hands-on primers in ecology and joy. Over time, I directed these newly acquired appreciations of eco systems to my profession.

I believe that responding to current environmental crises is the singular challenge of the current era. My goal as an art writer and curator is to enlist artists to this cause. Artists can make a special contribution because they possess the creative ingenuity to invent life-sustaining solutions, because art can inspire behavioral changes and awaken conscience, and because art’s public interface can disseminate the urgent need for environmental reform and preservation.

Regarding this project, “Mother Nature” is a widely recognized metaphor that stands for the material reality that throbs and pulses as it reacts to the continual flux of events on planet Earth. Because the concept of Mother Nature makes this vast and bewildering abstraction comprehensible, I hoped it would direct people to consider the planet’s aesthetic and functional integrity, its injuries and mortal wounds, and humanity’s responsibilities.—Linda Weintraub

As for the prosess of putting the show together:

Since my formal training is in studio art, I am predisposed to exploit opportunities for creative exploration. That is why I apply the strategies I learned as an artist to teaching, writing books, and certainly acting as curator. Each offers the potential to unleash previously unexplored cultural territories and present them through original formal and conceptual means. Four of the many creative opportunities that abound within the curatorial profession are in evidence in the “Dear Mother Nature” exhibition. The exhibition raises a question instead of asserting a thesis (What would you give to Mother Nature that reflects her current state and needs?)

It invited artists to create new works of art instead of submitting pre-existing artworks.

It devised opportunities for the audience’s creative participation.

The exhibition itself was like a work of art – a collage comprised of artworks that were invested with meaning and significance by existing within this context.
—Linda Weintraub

Four Milagros, Maria Cristina Brusca

Four Milagros, Maria Cristina Brusca

Four Milagros, Maria Cristina Brusca

There will be several events in conjunction with the exhibit:

As curator, I do not simply select and hang works of art. I also seek creative means to intensify the audience’s delight and deepen its appreciation of the works of art in the exhibition. The catalog that contains letters from each artist to Mother Nature was one way of accomplishing this. Events provide another because they interpret the theme through fresh communication channels. That is why the “Dear Mother Nature” programming includes gallery tours, performances, ceremonial meals, poetry slam, hands-on workshops, drawing demonstrations, dance performances, and readings.

Suzanna’s Garden Of Earthly Delights, Joan Bankemper

June 23. Mikhail Horowitz contributed to the festivities at the opening of the ‘Dear Mother Nature” by lugging an enormous globe upon his wearing shoulder. It set the tone for his poetry and song performance. Accompanied by Giles Malkin and Charlie Kniceley, he articulated many of the topics that the artists addressed with wit and humor.

July 21. Four artists (Portia Munson, Trina Green, Paul Stewart, and Claire Lambe) provided vivid examples of the ‘diversity’ guiding my curatorial decisions. My contribution to this presentation was to demonstrate their unifying core. I related all their themes and approaches to a single narrative about the turkeys on my homestead, a metaphor for Mother Nature.

August 25. The gallery tour is the prologue to a ceremonial meal, Mary Anne Davis’s art contribution. She engages the community in celebrating the bounty of Mother Nature by witnessing the blessings presented by representatives of many religious faiths. The public actively participates in the weeks prior to the event by glazing the ceramic bowls and preparing the local foods that will be served in them.

September 15. Three types of presentation comprise three opportunities for visitors to engage with the theme of this exhibition. As curator, I will set the stage with a brief gallery talk. Jan Harrison will perform ‘animals tongues’ which complements the powerful animal imagery she renders in pastels. Barbara Bash will demonstrate the unity of heaven, earth, and heart through exquisite drawing.
—Linda Weintraub

There are some art exhibits that have the potential to touch the viewer/participant in an authentic manner; to create a visceral response that will inform his life going forward and perhaps to help create change or awareness. This exhibit as a whole will change and inform your view. Don’t miss it…

Dear Mother Nature: Hudson Valley Artists 2012
Curated by Linda Weintraub

June 23 – Nov. 4, 2012
Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, SUNY New Paltz, NY
Alice and Horace Chandler Gallery

MUSEUM HOURS: Open on weekends only for the month of August
Wednesday – Sunday: 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
(Closed Mondays, Tuesdays, and Holidays)

LOCATION:
State University of New York at New Paltz
1 Hawk Drive, New Paltz, NY 12561
845.257.3844

featured painting; Detail from Claudia McNulty’s “Major Credit Cards Accepted”

all photographs were taken by the author

Harrison’s pastels, encaustic paintings and animal sculptures explore the essence of being both animal and human. She delves into the obscure depths of our collective psyche and melds the two worlds with a searing intensity. Her work has a strangely exquisite, eerie charm as it stuns us with its beauty.

The Corridor Series Primate #56

Many artists explore the psyche, the subconscious inner world that can emerge in our dreams and nightmares. Jan Harrison explores all this and takes us further, to a place where animals are endowed with the anguish of self knowledge. We relate to her creatures with empathy and passion, they are like us—they are us.

In Jan’s world there is little division between animal and human—she speaks animal—both with her imagery and literally in her performance of “Animal Tongues”.

Tiny Snow Leopard #1, 2011 Private Collection

There is a powerful purity, an intimate authenticity in the primacy of her work. This is the natural world, our inner truth, a world that captivates us and elucidates the duality of existence. Startling us, we descend into a primeval plain – a hidden place that still exists somewhere deeply buried in our sensibility. The effect is profoundly personal, a mysterious journey into the self.

Owl, The Corridor Series, Private Collection

Self-Portrait With Animal Eye

It’s no wonder then, that the work of this exceptionally gifted artist will be included in two upcoming shows in the Hudson Valley.

KMOCA Gallery’s new show, “Other Than Human,” in Kingston’s trendy Rondout District opens this Saturday, June 2 with an Artists Reception: 5–7 pm… Jan Harrison will be performing in Animal Tongues at the opening. www.kmoca.org

Jan will also be included in The Hudson Valley Artists 2012 exhibition, “Dear Mother Nature,” curated by Linda Weintraub at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art in the Alice and Horace Chandler Gallery and North Gallery. June 23 — November 4, 2012. www.newpaltz.edu

Fred, The Corridor Series, 2009, Private Collection

Jan Harrison

Jan Harrison’s paintings, sculpture, and installations involve a personal and universal myth which focuses on empathy with the animal nature and the animal/human interface. She sings in Animal Tongues, which has been performed and included as part of installations. Her work has shown in over one hundred and twenty exhibitions, including Animal.Anima.Animus, which opened in Finland and was exhibited in Holland, Canada, and at PS1, in Long Island City, NY. www.janharrison.net

Get out the tools:

By now, [middle to end of April], I should have all my tools gathered in one spot. I always plan this chore in February so that I’ll have plenty of time to clean and oil the handles, ditto for the blades, to check for rust and broken or loose parts and lastly, sharpen any dull blades.

Along with attending to my tools, I like to check the compost pile and make sure I have enough mulch and any organic boosters I may need for the season. It helps to have everything on hand so that you won’t have to run out and buy last minute items. Since it’s the beginning of the season, you can also buy in bulk without fear of waste.

Plan, Plan, Plan:

If you’re like me, you have lots of grandiose ideas about what you’ll accomplish finally, this year… I make plans for adding new plants to older beds, moving plants to new areas, playing around with the existing combinations, putting in new beds, putting in raised vegetable beds, putting in a bog garden, a cutting garden, etc., etc.

Here’s the truly difficult part; wading through my plans and lists and tossing out the plans that I know I won’t get to this year, [there’s always next year]. Then I go through what’s left and decide what my priorities are. I know from experience that even at my best, I will never, without the help of an experienced crew, finish all of the new things I’ve planned for this year’s garden. So, I must decide if I will have help this year, [little chance of that] or if I will as always, do most of the work myself and if that’s the case, what I most want to accomplish. It’s a good thing that I totally love doing this work.

Prune & Weed:

Early spring is a great time to take out any dead branches in your trees and shrubs. Some flowering shrubs can be pruned now. You must be cautious here, make sure you’re pruning a shrub that blooms on new growth not last years growth. There are various hydrangeas, among others, that fall into one or the other category. Buddleia, Russian Sage and Caryopteris can all be pruned now with impunity. Don’t forget to cut down those ornamental grasses you left up for winter interest and if you have a hedge that needs trimming, this would be a good time.

This is also a great time to start weeding. You can stop weeds from getting ahead of you if you pull them out now before they get established. And now’s the time to get rid of any invasive plants that made there way into your garden, or anywhere else on your property.

And so it begins…

photographs taken by the author, in her garden