Late spring garden chores

We’re almost at the end of May. The roses bloomed in April signifying it’s time for late spring garden chores. If you’re feeling behind the eight ball, I’m not surprised. I always feel like there’s too much to do in late spring, but this year is wetter than usual, bringing more weeds.

Still, the garden has never looked more lush.

Weed first. Then lay mulch.

Yesterday, I spent the entire day working on weeding the borders at the front of the house, and my friend who was helping me, worked on the main shade border. We weeded, planted some sun coleus–which can be grown in sun or shade–and mulched.

I didn’t take any photos of the front of the house. Below are the shady spots where we worked in the back garden. There were so many weeds! [Click on the photos in the galleries to make them larger.]

It took all day to do these spring garden chores, and we’re not finished. I also planted most of the trial plants from Dümmen Orange and Westhoff. That was no small task, but I appreciated the chance to try new annual and tropical plants.

Southern Living Plants also sent me two shrubs this year, a Better Boxwood and a new butterfly bush. I’ll write more about them later.

Spring garden chores in the vegetable garden.

See my new Vego garden beds above? Aren’t they pretty? I asked for them for our wedding anniversary.

In further spring garden chores, I’m assembling the two Vego garden containers I bought for Fr. Novak’s condo garden. I’ll plant roses in them for his small jewel garden.

My other Vego children’s garden beds will be here on Tuesday. These are the size I need next to my long Vego beds. I’m planting Lupini beans and Merveille de Piemonte beans in one of them and some other warm-weather veggies in the others. These beds replace my Smart Pots where I grew tomatoes for the past five years. I decided I wanted something more permanent, and I liked the shade of green.

Tomatoes and other vegetables grow well in pots and larger containers.

Time to deadhead plants like roses.

It’s also time to deadhead the roses, which had their first spring bloom in April. It was marvelous, and I’m grateful for the wonderful temperatures and the rain. No late freeze this year to spoil the show, and so far, no Japanese beetles although I’m sure they’re on their way.

When deadheading, think of it as meditation instead of work.

Another spring garden chore is to cut back the tall, fall-flowering perennials.

It’s time for the Chelsea Chop where I’ll cut many of my asters and other tall plants in half to encourage more branching and later flowering. The Chelsea Flower Show starts tomorrow and runs throughout the week. BritBox has a live show every day from the garden show. Remember when I got to go to Chelsea? It’s something I’ll never forget.

Podcasts are fun to listen to on long car trips or even while doing errands.

I’ve been listening to the Sarah Raven podcast, and because of one of our podcast listeners, I’m also listening to the Gardeners’ World magazine podcast. I am in the middle of their May 8 episode “Sensational Summer Borders with Daniel Hale.”

What does all of this have to do with spring garden chores and the Chelsea Chop? Hale said in this episode that he’s let go of some of the chopping and just let things grow. Carol and I discussed this at length in our latest episode of the Gardenangelists which isn’t yet published, but you can listen to last week’s episode “Beebalm, Beans and a Bunch of Wild Garden Banter” while you wait. Also, if you haven’t yet signed up for our free Substack newsletter, I would. It’s full of great information. It comes out each Tuesday morning and contains an early listen link.

In the kitchen garden.

In the potager, things are growing like gangbusters. The Shirley poppies have never looked better. ‘Amazing Grey’ is beautiful. I have photos mostly of flowers, but I’m also growing Swiss chard, garlic, onions, peas, bush beans, and squash–yet again–in there. I already harvested a lot of lettuce and onions. I’m excited to see what summer brings.

I love edible flowers in the garden like calendula, nasturtiums, and borage. Don’t eat the sweet peas. They are poisonous.

Sometimes, plants die.

In keeping with the good, bad, and the ugly, here is a shot of part of my lavender that died. I’m quite adept at this point in growing lavender, but I still have pieces of it occasionally die. It gives me more room to grow other things. I believe all death in the garden provides us with holes of opportunity.

You can grow lavender in Oklahoma, but it isn’t the easiest herb.

All gardeners kill things. Don’t let them tell you any different.

Native plants abound in the beds facing the street.

I’ve gone and weeded the beds facing the street once already this spring, but they need it again. The nice thing is as plants grow larger, they become green mulch by shading out weeds.

For example, look at the sweet, tall Rudbeckia maxima. She is beautiful and bold, and her leaves are as scrumptious as her flowers. I have her planted in four places in the garden, but her favorite spot is in those beds facing the street.

Common milkweed makes a nice stand of plants and is easy for Monarch butterflies to find. It also smells delicious.

I grow a lot of native plants in these two beds. They don’t have rich soil. They thrive here with very little water.

There are a few daylilies and peonies in there along with a couple of roses. I need to dig out one rose because it died back to its graft. Again, these things happens. I’ll dig it out and put something native in its place.

Even though it feels overwhelming, take an hour and those spring garden chores day by day. You’ll soon get enough done. If not, no one needs to know but you.

Until next time,