Click below to listen to my 2 min Garden Bite radio show: Garden tool prep and pruning out damage
If you’re soil is just too soggy (or still snow-covered), consider garden tool prep. At least lovingly tending to the tools gets us closer to the garden! Take some steel wool to those trowels, a file to your pruners and examine tools for any repair or, perhaps replacement!
Speaking of pruners, you can prune out dead or damaged branches. With the winter we’ve experienced you may find plenty of that in your landscape.
I know my lilac suffered from ice damage!
Panicle and Smooth hydrangeas can be pruned now if their buds aren’t open at all. A How-To from Proven Winners
You can add organic matter to your garden beds right now. Actually there’s never a bad time to add organic matter but with nothing planted, you can toss it all willy nilly and LIGHTLY rake it out.
Speaking of LIGHTLY raking things out, do that with any snow piles, if you have piles of leaves, get those raked up too.
Remove winter mulch. If you added it for strawberries, tender perennials or extra protection for newly planted shrubs, it’s time to lift it out. We aren’t likely to experience any hard frosts below 28 degrees. The caveat to that, is that it’s already been a weird year so you might want to keep the mulch nearby, just in case! Row covers are another way to protect your plants. I’ve used these for bug protection too.
