Spring in New Hampshire means that we can't start digging and planting as soon as we might like. Homegrown NH host Emma Erler has ideas for some things that you can do at this time of year. Erler is lead horticulturist at Squam Lakes Natural Science Center.
“Starting typically in March and going through mid-April or so, I'm doing a lot of pruning in Kirkwood Gardens,” she says. She focuses on removing anything that died or was damaged over the winter.
There's always brush to clean up in the spring, due to the large, mature trees in Kirkwood Gardens.
“Those big sugar maples drop all sorts of sticks and branches each year,” she says.
“I typically will end up raking the lawn again in the spring,” she says. “There are invariably patches of matted oak leaves that are going to prevent the lawn from growing well, or they will just end up smothering the grass in areas where the ground is thawed out fully and it's dry.”
Erler says she spends quite a bit of time pulling extra leaves out of the bases of shrubs.
“That's because the bark on woody plants doesn't like to have mulching material piled up against it, and that includes leaves,” she says. “So pulling those out, usually by hand or with a small little hand rake, is a nice thing to do in the spring.”
She also tends to her spring bulbs.
“If there's a whole bunch of leaves sitting where the daffodils or the grape hyacinths or tulips are starting to come up, I'll carefully remove some of those leaves just to make it a little bit easier for them.”
To keep the squirrels from digging up the tulip bulbs, Erler uses an organic fertilizer with contents that smell unpleasant to squirrels.
“Some of these materials are made out of blood meal or composted eggs, egg waste or compost. Putting that over top of those bulbs not only helps the bulbs, but it keeps a lot of those squirrels off as well.”
Although fertilizing might be something that you consider early too, Erler says she typically waits until things are actively growing so that the fertilizer isn't going to waste.
See you in the garden!
If you have a gardening question for Homegrown NH, email or send a voice memo to HomegrownNH@ NHPR.org.
Homegrown New Hampshire is a collaboration between Squam Lakes Natural Science Center and NHPR.
