We have all heard the nursery rhyme, April showers bring May flowers, what do Mayflowers bring? Pilgrims of course. This year we did not get much rain in April to bring out our May flowers (even though a lot of them were beautiful this year) and we are not getting much rain in May. My lawn and perennials at my house are so dry they are almost crunchy. I think its safe to say we are in a drought condition here in Mid Michigan.
If you are one of the lucky ones to have put in a new landscape last fall or this spring watch out! Your’e plants can dry up and die pretty easy with this weather. On the other hand however, don’t go overboard with the automatic irrigation especially on clay soil. You could end up drounding the poor things. The best way to tell if your plants need water is to look at them everyday. I used to have a 55 gal. fish tank. The best piece of advise I ever got was to look at the fish everyday. If you get to know your fish, you know when they are getting sick and you can add medicine to the tank. It is the same idea with the plants in our gardens. If you take a nightly stroll with your glass of wine, coffee, or beverage of your choice, and just look at your garden, you will get to know your plants and you will see when they are suffering. If they look limp, yellow, or lacklustre it could be because they need water. Unfortunately it could also mean they have too much water, the symptoms are the same. That’s why you have to get to know them and their routine. If you know you just watered last night for example, and they look limp, it could be because they are too wet. Stick your finger in the soil and see if the soil feels moist or dry. Moist don’t water, dry water. It is really not that hard to figure out if you look at your plants everyday.
In the nursery we have lots of bloomin goin on. If you want to get into the spring spirit and you are not there already come on in and have a gander. The Rhododendrons are in bloom and we have some specials on plants from last year. We also have a nice batch of roses in numerous colors brightening up the nursery.
Keep gardening.