THE LAZY BERKSHIRE GARDENER: Week of April 17, 2025

Last weekend, I had three inches of snow at my house on Saturday. Ugh. It didn’t disappear until the next day.

Oh well. Spring snow captures nitrogen from the atmosphere then releases it into thawed soils as it melts. That is why it is the “poor farmer’s fertilizer.



” The hyacinths were blooming strong on Sunday, so no more complaints from me!Continue to look ahead at the weather. Warm days may dry out soils, but frost could threaten the next. If your young lettuce and kale seedlings haven’t hardened off completely, lay a cover of spun polyester fabric over the beds when frost is in the forecast.

That won’t be necessary for plants that have come up after you seeded them directly.My plans outdoors last weekend included seeding lettuce, carrots, radishes, spinach, and onions in my raised beds. I decided not to spread the seed on top of the snow on Saturday, and by Sunday, the snow had melted into the fresh compost layer from last weekend making a perfect planting bed.

I spread the spinach in its own rows. Previously, I have had lousy spinach germination, so I am trying to distinguish the rows from other greens. I want to concentrate on watering and thinning the plants while they have no competition.

Nearby, I scattered a mix of different lettuce seed varieties in a two-foot-by-two-foot square. I will cut these as baby greens and eventually thin the plants to form bigger heads as the spring goes on.Carrots can take up to three weeks to germinate and take weeks to form their long sweet roots.

I decided to plant the carrots between the spinach rows. Both seeds need cool soils and consistent moisture to grow but mature at different rates. The spinach will be picked months before the carrots.

I continued to replant my divided swamp mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos) in various full-sun, high-moisture parts of my landscape. It took me a couple weeks to decide where it should go. I preserved the roots in damp newspaper in my cold breezeway until I was ready to plant.

As a summer bloomer, the swamp mallow hasn’t started to “wake up” yet. The roots will grow into their new location and produce foliage but may not flower. That is fine.

They will flower next year. When planting perennials (even healthy, divided ones), amend the planting hole with some compost at about one part compost to two parts native soil. The compost improves the tilth of your planting hole, and roots have an easier time absorbing moisture and spreading into the new location.

After spreading a layer on my veggie beds and adding it to the planting holes, I emptied my compost bin of all the organic material that had been resting since last fall. Grass roots had discovered the nitrogen-rich compost around the edges of the bin, and I took some time to cut away the sod that was stealing my rich compost for itself. Luckily, the grass roots came free from the loose compost easily and I could relocate the compost to my gardens.

That green grass was at the edge of the compost bin, highlighted in yellow. Water filtering through a compost pile will be rich in nitrogen and other nutrients. Plants around a compost pile benefit from the regular access to that compost “tea.

” The grass at the edge of the bin had roots growing under the bin edges and filling the lowest layer of compost!I scouted for more blooms opening in the landscape. My earliest Viburnum, Pink Dawn (Viburnum x bodnantense “Pink Dawn”) has blooms on the wood formed last year. This plant has been here for three years and is still young.

I am hoping it takes off in 2025. I will fertilize it and make sure the soil stays moist. The blooms are so pretty in April.

As soon as the blooms fade, I will trim back the stems to encourage more growth and flowers next year. I want this plant to put on a show in the future.The shrub has a small weed-free skirt of mulch around the base.

I hope to connect this plant with two others in a shrub “border” and remove all the grass between the plants. With this plan, I can add some supporting native perennials and drought-tolerant ground covers that use less water than grass. Then, those water reserves will be available to my shrubs instead.

The pink buds and white bloom of Viburnum x bodnantense “Pink Dawn” has just started. It is the Lazy Berkshire Gardener’s first viburnum to bloom each year. It is fragrant, too.

More observations around the garden—an unwelcome early visit from the Easter bunny. I noticed the allium leaves were up last week with sprays of long green leaves edged in red. Then on Sunday (post snow), I discovered someone had munched half the leaves! Rabbits! I thought the rabbits would avoid the smelly leaves of allium, but I suppose snow cover limited the rabbits’ menu.

Nothing is completely pest-proof.This allium’s whirl of long leaves with red edges was symmetrical about a week ago. The rabbits must have found it poking through Saturday’s snow.

They will typically ignore allium. The top still survives, and it should still flower.Look closely at your perennial plants emerging from their cold slumber.

Many emerge in hues of pink, purple, or dark blue. Cold weather affects the availability of phosphorus from the soil, and when the nutrient is unavailable, the plant produces anthocyanins as a “sunblock” to help absorb excess spring sunlight until the soil warms up enough when the plant can begin photosynthesis. Perennials like Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium), Geranium, some weeds, herbs, and spring ephemerals often show up in pink-purple garb first.

Delicate sprouts of a variegated “Jacob’s Ladder” show up pink-purple when temperatures are still cold. The blue glass “slag” from a local glass furnace marks the plant’s location for the forgetful gardener.Also visible now are the red tips of peony plants.

When you see these, you know your peony is planted at the proper depth. I always leave a little stem when cutting back the dead leaves in the fall so I know where to look in spring. Gently pull away any weeds or mulch from these emerging plant stems to give them light! Now that you know where they are, install your peony support hoops or grids.

You can adjust the peony stems to stay within the supports as they grow and your gorgeous blooms won’t snap into the mud during heavy June rainstorms. That is a lazy gardener win!Red growing tips of peony stems should be just visible at the soil surface now. Tan cut stems from last fall help indicate where to look.

I call myself the Lazy Berkshire Gardener because I don’t want to work too hard in my gardens. I want to enjoy them. I find it easier to observe my landscape and let the compost happen, the water pool up, or daisies to self-sow.

I look for ways to do the minimum task for the biggest impact. For example, mulching is better than spraying and much better than weeding all season. I look for beautiful, low-maintenance plants that thrive in or at least tolerate my garden conditions.

Plus, I am willing to live with the consequences if I miss something..