Spring begins next week.
Sure, it doesn’t feel like it, but there are plenty of things you can do in the yard in March to get your garden going.
To get inspired, we took a trip to My Garden nursery in Mill Creek.
Jenny Gunderson and her partner, Bill Raynolds, both former Molbak’s employees, opened the nursery in November 2006, and it has been expanding ever since.
They recently won the Northwest Flower &Garden Show’s “Best Use of Recycled Materials” award for their whimsical container garden titled “Putting Our Heads Together to Make Our World a Better Place.”
On the heels of their award and in anticipation of the growing season, we asked them: What can we plant right now while there’s still a danger of a nasty frost?
Plenty, it turns out. Here’s a look at the dynamic duo’s top six picks for March planting.
1. PRIMROSES: Lift your spirits with perennial, cold-hardy primroses. Their stunning hues provide instant color gratification, they come back every year and they’re available in a variety of styles.
Gunderson recommends double primroses, which feature ruffles and almost roselike blooms, a definite change of pace from the ubiquitous single varieties.
Pop them into containers, beds, borders, anywhere you need an electric shot of color. Though they prefer part shade and protection from hot, late-day sun, they aren’t fussy and cost a mere $1.49 for a 4-inch pot.
“They’re just so easy,” Gunderson said. “Very often the yellow ones are fragrant.”
2. ARABIS: Have you ever heard of this plant, also known as rock cress? It’s an old-school perennial and it’s coming back.
“Arabis is a classic rockery plant, meaning that it likes good sun, good drainage and some space to sprawl,” Raynolds said.
Though arabis is available in a many colors, Raynolds recommends Spring Charm, featuring sweetly scented rose-pink flowers on stems that reach about 8 inches tall. It goes for $2.99 for a 4-inch pot.
This plant’s evergreen foliage makes it a shoo-in for the low-maintenance perennial gardener.
3. SWEET PEAS: You don’t have to wait until Mother’s Day to plant peas. Though that day typically marks the time when the danger of frost has passed in Western Washington, many cool-season crops actually need to go in the ground now for success. That includes lettuce, spinach, sugar snap peas and ornamental sweet peas, too.
“They really want to be up and doing their thing before the heat hits,” Raynolds said of the white, purple and pink blooms of sweet peas, which also make great spring bouquets. “Their fragrance is to die for.”
Sweet pea seed packets typically go for about $2.49 each.
4. ASPARAGUS: If you’ve always dreamed of starting your own asparagus patch, let 2009 be the year.
Unlike so many vegetable crops, asparagus is a perennial and comes back every year from the same root system.
Of course that means you’ll need a permanent place for it, at least a square foot for each crown, ideally more. Look for bare-root crowns — scraggly root clusters typically displayed in buckets of woodchips — at nurseries now for about 99 cents each.
Though you’ll have to wait until your plants’ third season to get a harvest — and even then you should take only a third — productive beds of asparagus can last 15 years.
Raynolds recommends planting a 20-by-3-foot area with asparagus for a pretty and large crop: “You can eat yourself silly with asparagus.”
5. FRUIT TREES: Growing your own fruit trees doesn’t have to take a lot of space.
Nurseries such as My Garden offer trees with multiple varieties grafted onto a single tree. You can also buy plants trained into two-dimensional espalier shapes, which can grow happily against a trellis, wall or fence with additional support added for each branch.
Like so many crops sold early in the season as bare-root plants, fruit trees are a steal at nurseries right now.
My Garden, for example, offers a three-tier espalier with Bosc, red Bartlett and Bartlett pears all on one tree for $37.49. Fruit trees start at about $20.
Trees planted now will take to transplanting far better than those put in the ground in the heat of summer.
6. HELLEBORES: Now is the time to be thinking about next year’s winter garden and that means making a place for hellebores. These winter-spring workhorses will add charm with blooms from December through April, hence their common name of Lenten rose.
Early spring is when nurseries have their largest selection of hellebores, and they’re in bloom so you can see exactly what kind you’re buying. Plus, many varieties offer funky evergreen foliage to enhance your garden year-round. Hellebore prices at My Garden start at $9.99.
Sarah Jackson: 425-339-3037, sjackson@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
