Spring is for Gardeners

This is the time of year that gardeners wait for with bated breath!  Each day we patrol local landscapes looking for the first signs of plant life after the long winter.  Anything to feed our cravings until our gardens really start to emerge.  Look for microclimates, like south facing walls, where we can hope to see bulbs poking their green leaves into the sun, and the buds on trees starting to swell.  In your own garden, gently start to remove any mulch you might have placed on flower beds, or leaves that fell from the trees last fall.  Don’t expose the bare earth quite yet, as there is still plenty of time for a late frost, and the tender growing tips of plants still need their winter blanket for a little while longer.  Just pull back the first layer, fluff up the rest with a rake, and start to get the air moving.  The first plants we can expect to see will be our native prairie crocuses (Anemone patens, or Pulsatilla patens), pushing out their low, purple blooms even before the last snow has melted.  By mid-April we can look for the earliest of spring bulbs such as Siberian squill (Scilla sibirica), species tulips (Tulipa tarda), and glory of the snow (Chionodoxa luciliae).  Amazingly, even if a few leaves are in their way, many spring bulbs have the ability to drill their growing tips right through, creating holes in the leaf rather than pushing it aside.  Right alongside these colourful, low blooms are the amazing hepatica (Hepatica nobilis).  Flowering even before their leaves emerge, these spreading perennials come in sparkling, intense blue, vibrant pink, and soft white.  If your garden is still looking brown and bare this spring, consider adding some of the plants listed above.  Lots of information is available from garden centers and on-line, and all are on display here at the Calgary Zoo and Botanical Gardens.  If you are a gardener keen to learn and share with other gardeners, check out our programs here.

Jane Reksten, Botanical Education Coordinator.