Early Spring Flowers Embellish Your Garden

As soon as Christmas is over, and all the decoration have been cleared away, how nice it is to see the early spring bulbs and spring flowering houseplants in the garden centers.While many bulbs re traditionally considered as outdoor features, some can be grown successfully indoors. Bulbs, such as crocus and hyacinths appear in the stores in bud well before any of the- spring bulbs in gardens show through. These bulbs have been forced, but once you have enjoyed them inside the house you can plant them outside the garden to flower again the following year. After they have finished flowering, remove any dead flowers.

When the fear of frost has passed, transfer them to the garden, keeping their leaves intact, where you must feed them with a high potash fertilizer every two weeks to encourage them to flower well into the following year. Primula, with its delicate petals, makes a lovely spring plant for the kitchen windowsill. When the flowers eventually die, you can encourage extra flowering by placing the plant in a cool conservatory or on a frost-free porch where, alter a short rest away from the central heating, a second flush of flowers will soon appear.

 The hydrangea (French Hydrangea) is a popular spring plant, which makes a nice change from some of the smaller flowering specimens. Although you tend to buy these plants in spring; they will flower well into the summer months if given the correct treatment. Hydrangea need at great deal of moisture, preferring rainwater to hard tap water, and they are best placed in a flat-bottomed container so they can absorb water Freely! Surround the plants with damp moss to encourage humidity and keep them in a cool, bright situation.

After they have finished flowering, prune back the stems and re-pot them into a larger container. These plants benefit from a short stay in the garden during the summer months. Simply bury the pot in a shady part of the garden, watering and feeding periodically with a high potash Feed. In fall, bring the plant indoors to a cool, frost-free room and reduce watering to encourage the plant to rest. In early spring, gradually increase watering to bring the plant back into flower once again.

The cold winter will end soon.  Let's learn and prepare your flower garden to the coming early spring.

•     Remove winter mulch only after the weather has become reliably warm. The same also applies in case of cutting back evergreen plants, such as lavender.
      The perennials that have been heaved out of the ground by frost should be replanted as soon as possible.
•     The dead plants of the winter should be cut and the old perennials should be cleaned of any foliage.
      If you have mounded the earth around the roses, as a protective measure, it is the time to remove it.
•     Concentrate on pruning the rose bushes before they begin leafing out.
      The flower beds should not be dig too early. Pick up a handful of soil. If it falls apart and is dry enough, you can start digging. You can also start the process of adding compost or manure.
•     Make sure to take out the weeds as soon as you see them. If you leave them now, you will have too much weeding work at your hand later on.
      Cut the ornamental grasses.  In an early spring garden, grass grows very vigorously. So, put a sharp trench between the flower beds to edge them and to keep the grass within limits. Repeat the procedure a number of times in the season. If you want to avoid the repetition work, go for permanent edging.
•     Late winter or early spring is the best season to prune your shrubs. They are still dormant, so they don't suffer from it and this time their foliage is minimal, so you can see what you're doing. There is one exception to this rule.
      Don't prune flowering shrubs in spring. By doing so you will cut the flowers you were hoping for this season. Prune these shrubs after they finished blooming. That way they have the most time to recover and regain strength
      When planting spring flower seeds, wait until two weeks after the last frost to plant them in the ground, or start them inside and move them outdoors when the weather warms up.
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