What should we do for the garden in April?

 

Farewell to Winter

 

 

We are in-between seasons now – a lot of snow is still hanging around, the ground is frozen and pond-size puddles abound.

However, Spring is in the air. We are itching to get outside and do something – anything – that will rid us of the last of the winter cobwebs and allow us to get up to our elbows in Nature.

So what’s a gardener to do in April in Zone 3b?

• Empty and clean nest boxes – repair as needed.
• Build bee houses
• Pruning, but not your elms!
• If you are still unfortunate enough to have lawn, lightly rake through any snowmold that may appear.
• If you haven’t begun yet – seeding indoors for vegetables and more.

What are you doing this month?

Accommodating Pollinators

Native Andrenid Bee

Bug Girl has brought to my attention the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. They provide several free publications that would be of interest to nature loving gardeners across North America:

• Pollinators in Natural Areas: A Primer on Habitat Management
• Nests for Native Bees.
• Butterfly Gardening.
• Plants for Native Bees in the Pacific Northwest
• Plants for Native Bees in California.
• Plants for Native Bees in the Upper Midwest.
• Plants for Native Bees in North America.

Garden Interlude: Lily Pond

Perfect day it ain’t…unless you are fond of sleet and cold. Here is a brief Vashti Bunyan song, Lily Pond, featuring English country scenes…and lily ponds.

Now don’t you feel better?

Looking Back – A Fall Visitor

I’m not willing to say that this visitor is a result of how natural our garden really is, however it was undoubtedly the most exciting guest that has ever graced our green space. Probably passing through on the fall migration south early last October, this appears to be a immature Cooper’s hawk. It was sitting on the patio overhead, just outside our bedroom window.

Our Predatory Visitor

Why ‘Naturalistic’?

Can Gardening be ‘Natural’?

When we hear of ‘natural’ or ‘wild’ gardens we are faced with a self-contradictory term. While no one will dispute that all plants, even the most outrageous cultivars, grow ‘naturally’; how can any garden that is arranged and controlled by man be called ‘natural’? Does planting a garden with native plants alone make a wild garden?

By ‘naturalistic’ I refer to a garden that make no pretense of being natural in its arrangement or its development through plant succession: I wish only to have a garden which appears as if it has reached a certain successional stage, and then maintain the garden with as little interference as possible. A wild garden, planted with only local native plants, could then be defined as a natural garden which is not controlled after the initial planting, and is allowed to progress, without interference, through whatever successional path it may take.

But then it is no longer a garden…

In essence, Naturalistic gardening is an elaborate (but satisfying) imitation of nature that allows urban gardeners to feel surrounded by the essence, if not the reality, of a natural ecosystem. It does not depend on native plants and it does not claim to be something that a garden cannot be.