Spring begins

The spring has arrived and everything is beginning to come to life either, budding, sprouting forth from the ground, or early spring flowers blooming.
It is now time to clean the gardens out from the winter damage and whatever else that may be keeping it from looking its best. It is also time to plant the new bulbs, corms and tubers you may have for the late spring and summer bloom.

Bulbs are plants such as Tulips, Daffodils and Hyacinths. They should be planted in the fall.
Corms are plants such as crocuses and gladiolis. They vary, crocuses in the fall, gladiolis very soon, after last frost because they are a summer blooming plant.
Tubers are plants such as Dahlias and some begonias. They should also be planted when there are no signs of frost. Even a small amount of frost can and will kill tubers.

Each plant varies in shape and size not to mention whether they have to be dug up each fall or left in the ground.The depth to be buried also varies.
Plants such as tulips, crocuses, daffodils, gladiolis and hyacinths can all be planted fairly deep so that you can plant summer blooming plants on top of them.
Again as mentioned above, spring blooming plants should be planted in the fall. Late spring and summer plants should be planted in the early spring providing it is in a frost free enviroment.

Bulbs and corms that are left in the ground normally are able to regenerate and create new bulbs from the mother plant/bulb, this is called naturalizing. After a few years they have to be dug up and divided because they usually become overcrowded and have a tendancy not to bloom as well, if at all. The advantage to division, however; is that you get a fairly good amount of bulbs from this mother bulb so that you will be able to plant them in other areas around your home and garden without having to take another cent out of your pocket book for more bulbs.

When the blooms begin to fade, before they go to seed, they should be cut off the stalk to ensure the bulbs conserve and stores enough energy in order to produce blooms for the following season. Let the leaves of the plants dry on there own and then cut them off when they are dried.

That about wraps it up for today. I shall be back with more tips very soon.