Gardening by Judith Adam It doesn’t take many days of strong spring sunlight to awaken some beautiful plants and creatures. Among the earliest to show themselves are the sweet Canada violets growing in odd corners, around tree trunks and spreading into lawns. These beautiful violets have a candy scent if you can get down close enough for a sniff, and their rich purple colour is vivid in early sunlight. Hidden along bare tree branches and under leaf debris, there’s a beautiful rustling taking place as the earliest seasonal butterflies are waking. These over-wintering butterflies take to the air when scented spring flowers emerge, before foliage on the bare wood of shrubs and trees. The dramatic Mourning Cloak butterfly will sometimes fly even while snow drifts are still melting, and often spreads its cream-bordered black wings on a heat-absorbing stone. Mourning Cloaks will also join with Red Admiral butterflies drawn to emerging pink flowers on the bare wood of early blooming viburnum. They both relish the bright yellow flowers of Cornelian-cherry Dogwood (Cornus mas ‘Golden Glory’), a large shrub that also produces a bonus of edible red berries in early summer. Blooming at the same time are the tissue-thin, pale pink flowers of semi-dwarf apricot trees growing 10 to 12 feet in height. Hardy apricot trees such as ‘Harglow’, ‘Veecot’ and ‘Moorpark’ have been bred for cold climates, are suitable for small gardens and always welcome the attention of earliest butterflies. After a long northern winter, every gardener wants to greet the spring growing season with a rapid demonstration of vigorous plant growth. There is great temptation to purchase fertilizer products and distribute them to lawns and plants as early as possible. Depending upon timing, this can produce two results – either a display of vigorous green blades, stems and buds, or withered roots and twigs that may require several weeks to recover. What went wrong? Knowing more about how plants grow helps put fertilizer use into perspective. When planting summer annuals or newly purchased perennial and woody plants, the best method of supplying fertilizer is to use a commercial transplanting solution. Liquid concentrate transplanting solutions are formulated with the appropriate amount of minerals to encourage early growth without burning roots of new plants going into containers or garden soil. Garden plants have inherited genetic information about how and when to grow. Healthy plants (both woody shrubs and trees and herbaceous perennials) sense spring changes in light, moisture and soil temperature and react by producing growth hormones at appropriate times. The most vigorous production of plant growth hormones is in spring, followed by occasional growth spurts during the summer season. Whatever the weather this day, consider it spring! The time has come to search for hints and outright signs of early growth, indicating good things ahead. We can encourage plants to flourish, but it’s best to recognize when they’re ready to grow. Meanwhile, there are unexpected spring jewels ready to dazzle us. Appreciate the joys of early spring, but be patient for the bursting buds and blossoms. Early spring arrivals might surprise you. Spring fertilizers it’s all about the timing 50 | www.snowbirds.org
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