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New England Gardening

Spring in February?

prairiemoon2 z6b MA

last year

I was just looking at the forecast and we are getting close to 60F tomorrow and then low 50s, high 40s for most of the next week. I was going to start pruning deciduous shrubs but I think I will have to wait.

Climate change throws a monkey wrench into your gardening schedule! I'd like to get something done before the spring busy season. It's probably too soon to clean up the debris from last year's perennials too?

Anyone have a plan for getting some work done despite climate change?

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Comments (2)

Sigrid
last year
I look at the odds of a frost. Last year, we had a warm early spring, but then a cold snap, and I uncovered some plants too soon. This year, I had to shovel snow on to some bare plants when the temps went to -12.

This winter has been warm, but with one or two days of very cold weather. I'd be careful about uncovering too soon, although if you keep an eye on the weather and have some frost covers, you might be okay, as long as you are home when the unexpected freeze happens.

First and last freeze/frost dates for Lexington, MA ,United States (davesgarden.com)
prairiemoon2 z6b MA thanked Sigrid
prairiemoon2 z6b MA
Original Author
last year
Thanks for that link, Sigrid. We have no snow to cover anything with and even with the chopped leaf mulch I'm seeing the foliage on daffodils getting higher and higher. I now have more snowdrops blooming and more foliage coming up. And that is before this week of warm weather. I haven't seen any bulbs trying to grow in my front bed that has the thickest layer of chopped leaves.

Well, I'd love to be pruning shrubs - but if we had a late frost/freeze and new growth was on the shrubs, I'd have little chance of covering them and preventing damage. The bulbs and perennials, I can cover with something. So I guess I'll wait to prune. I wasn't considering removing the mulch cover on anything early. I was hoping to removed the spent branches and foliage of last year's perennials. I wondered if doing that would trigger new growth?
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