What's Growing in the Garden: Part 1 Spring
Spring cannot come soon enough and I've been waiting patiently waiting until spring comes to start digging in the garden. I got together with Pike Nursery here in Atlanta to gather all of my spring planting needs. I’ve shopped at Pike’s for years and it’s truly my happy place. I have the garden mapped out this year (see above) and everything will have it's own space. Last year, I mapped things out, but I threw it out the window as the spring went on and just planted like crazy. I don't recommend doing that. I didn't have as much success as I did the year before when I was meticulous with my planting.
Now, let's get to the fun part with telling you what I have planned for the garden this Spring. I had to take into account what I will plant this summer which will start around April and May. That post will be coming in two weeks. I plant seeds as well as young plants, depending on what it is. Some of the plants I have in the garden are already established, so that was important when planning everything out.
As you can see above, flowers are starting to take over the beds. In the two narrow, long beds there’s already various bulbs growing like tulips and daffodils. They will be finished blooming in April. I’m planting some of my flower seeds now and the rest after what should be my zone’s last frost date (zone 7 is around March 23rd). The dahlia tubers won’t be planted until later in April. Some people even wait until May here. For the flowers now, I’m planting sweet peas, snapdragons and breadseed poppies (which I’m a little late for my zone). All of the other flower goodness will be planted at the end of the month. For the vegetables, I’m sowing more lettuce seeds: buttercrunch, marvel of four seasons and parris island cos romaine. I’m also planting three varieties of peas: sugar snap, iona petite and sugar magnolia. I’ve planted all three of these in the past and they do really well. All of these seeds are from Botanical Interests. You can also buy them locally at Pike’s.
A new established plant that is going into the garden is this climbing hydrangea from Monrovia. I couldn’t pass it up and I can’t wait to see it trail all along our garden fence. We have six roses in the garden already with lambs ear, creeping jenny and sea urchin surrounding them.
Another bed is filled with garlic bulbs (those will be pulled in June) and herbs like orange mint, cilantro, rosemary, lavender, oregano and thyme. I did buy an early basil plant, we will see how it does. I will plant basil seeds in early April when the soil has really warmed up. I also am adding tarragon and chives now. All of the beds are being gently turned and cleaned up with some new planting mix and mushroom compost from Pike’s. I have to be careful with all of the bulbs in the beds.
