In her ‘Ode to Spring’, Saskatchewan’s Sarah Binks joyfully welcomed substitute for departing winter, proclaiming that: “For spring is coming with its mirth/And breezy breath of balmy warmth,” while “luscious joy shall fill the earth.”
Spring home and garden shows abound – but when does spring really arrive? The sun may wobble north again the third week of March. A few snowdrops may be joined by adventurous crocus. Cabin fever may be banished but we all know frosts and even threat of more snow is not yet past.
American poet Ogden Nash, a New Englander if ever there was one, was not enthralled with the arrival of spring, expressing his opinion thusly:
I do not like the signs of spring,
The fever and the chills,
The icy mud, the puny bud,
The frozen daffodils.
This dubious period is, he stated,
Spring is simply a seasonal gap
When winter and summer overlap
And clinched the whole dreary matter:
I suppose it’s the same in Patagonia;
Today spring fever, tomorrow pneumonia.
Most of Canada, too – if we go by the calendar. Some say the first flowers pushing up from the soil. But can snowdrops really herald spring? The first robin arriving? Naw – many knowing a free handout when they see one, hang around all winter. Perhaps the arrival of male redwing blackbirds is more reliable, arriving before the missus to stridently stake out their territory. Whatever it is, you can forget the third week of March.
The good news is that according to USA Today, 28% of Americans say that gardening is their favourite springtime activity, followed by walking or running at 18%, and outdoor sports such as baseball, soccer, tennis and golf trailing at 11%.
Diversion No. 1
The Manure Maiden, the Fraulein of Fertilizer, Princess of Poop . . . Andrea Lawseth is a manure educator at the Langley Environmental Partners Society (LEPS), writes Glenda Luymes in The Province. Lawseth is also Manure Matchmaker after her newest project, the Manure Link website, a place where farmers with extra manure and gardeners seeking free fertilizer can do their business.
Check out Manure Link or, for educational matters,
Manure Maiden.
Last year, spring arrived early. Golf courses were open by the end of March. Those eager gardeners who sowed hardy seeds right away were in for a disappointment. The weather stayed cool for several weeks. Soils, particularly clay ones, stayed chilly, rotting any sowings.
So like so much of gardening, we are left in the hands of the gods. Folklore is full of advice on the subject. And not all of it is foolish either. In Lincolnshire, eastern England, farmers used to go out into their fields, drop their pants and sit bare-assed on the soil. If it was not uncomfortable, then seeds could be sown safely. In Canada, pant dropping should probably be practiced at night, lest nervous neighbours called les gendarmes.
There are several safer opportunities gardening offers this month, however. Summer-flowering shrubs are best pruned in March. Since flowers are produced principally on new wood, removing one-third of branches over three years old each year will yield more prolific blooms. At the same time, as with all shrubs and trees, remove any dead, dying or diseased wood.
Drastic pruning in March can revitalize very old, neglected deciduous shrubs. Admittedly, it takes some nerve but many older favourites will revive in two or three years if reduced to four-to-six-inch stumps. Specimens for such vigorous treatment include forsythia, honeysuckle, mockorange, privet and spirea. Cut back old-fashioned lilacs to a foot-high, while removing all suckers from the base. The latter should also be an annual undertaking.
Shrubs that have outgrown their present positions may be moved to new locations as soon as frost is out of the ground and the soil can be worked, but before they have “leafed out.” Dig with as large a rootball as possible, taking the opportunity to undertake any remedial pruning.
Diversion No. 2
You could enjoy a bottle of the Champion of World Sparkling Wines, Nytimer’s Classic Cuvée 2003 – providing you can locate any after it beat such French Champagne makers Bollinger and Louis Roederer in an international competition. A bottle of bubbly will set you back a trifle more than £30 the West Chilington, Sussex vintner in south England is – or was – when it was acclaimed in the competition run by Italian wine magazine Euposia. In vino veritas, eh what?
Near the end of March, pull back winter-protecting mulches from perennial and herb beds. The discarded winter mulch can be added to the compost heap or dug into the vegetable garden.
As soon as the first bulbs bare their heads, expect the local squirrel population to wreak havoc. Narcissus (daffodils) and Scilla (squill) are poisonous to them but little else is. So down they come from the maples, where they had been biting twigs to lick the sweet sap – this explains the maple litter this time of year. Dusting every few days with hot cayenne pepper along with blood meal fertilizer is the usual advice. Commercial deterrents are of questionable effectiveness.
Although corn gluten is a useful, non-toxic herbicide, it is way too early to apply yet. However, last year was the breakthrough season for this natural selective weedkiller and many garden centres soon sold out. Purchase early to avoid disappointment as certain ads once advised . . .
Diversion No. 3
“Happy is the tender grass/When your feet do not trespass,” sign seen at The Great Pagoda, Xi’an, by The Daily Telegraph reader Anthony Tricot
The perennial border is about to become a foodie’s fantasy if one is to judge by Gardenimport’s spring 2010 catalogue. Cimicifuga ‘Chocoholic;’ Dianthus ‘Coconut Punch,’ ‘Dragon Fruit,’ and ‘Pomegranate Kiss;’ Echinacea ‘Hot Papaya;’ Heuchera ‘Green #’ and ‘Georgia Peach;’ and Leucanthemum ‘Banana Cream,’ to name but a few, surely builds an appetite for this season’s gardening experience. For more, check out
Garden Import.
On the subject of catalogues, some mail order seed houses include in the price of the packages their packing and postage. Others do not. And these extra charges can increase the cost of your order considerably. Interestingly, those that include the cost are not necessarily charging more for their seeds. In fact, those of at least one company,
Richters Herbs , are often less expensive. Illegitimi non carborundum indeed
Diversion No. 4
Hollywood actress Liv Tyler, star of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, yearns for the rural life, according to Anita Singh of The Daily Telegraph. “Before I die I want to live on a farm with chickens and a vegetable garden and a John Deere tractor,” the actress, 32, says.
A week before spring barges in, daylight saving time arrives. Time to set back the clocks an hour – and risk what the doctors call myocardial infarction. In plain English, a heart attack. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed the number of heart attacks, on average, rises by about five percent the first week of DST. The clocks go back on 14 March this year – except for Saskatchewan where presumably you would be less at risk.
April Fool! By the time you get to read these words of wisdom, the 1st April is likely to be well past its ‘best before’ date. So here are a trio to try on family, friends, at work . . . but perhaps not on fellow gardeners:
Tomato plants grow taller when subjected to the sound of a woman’s voice rather than that of a man, according to British research.
The giant Palouse earthworm lives in the vast agricultural region that stretches from eastern Washington into the Idaho panhandle. The worm is said to secrete a lily-like smell when handled, spit at predators, and live in burrows 15 feet deep.
The “cuddle chemical”, oxytocin, is being put to use by farmers in India to boost the growth of pumpkins and cucumbers.
The first is true, the second well, sort of, and the third dubious:
The RHS found that the tomato plants that listened to female voices grew an average of an inch more than the ones that listened to male voices. Some of the mens’ tomatoes did so poorly that they grew more slowly than the soundless control group.
“It absolutely exists,” insisted Jodi Johnson-Maynard, a University of Idaho professor who is leading the search for the worm of which there have been only four sightings.
“It is unlikely, but not impossible that there could be an effect in plants, but I seriously doubt that this would massively impact on crop yields in most situations,” says Malcolm Hawkesford of Britain’s Rothamsted Research.
