From turning off the furnace to turning on the air conditioner, man oh man, that’s how fickle the weather is in early June in Wyoming. As you can imagine, garden centers have been a bee-hive of activity as gardeners are biting at the bit to do what they love to do—get dirty in the garden! Sure there’s the annual rush to get vegetable starts, but what’s surprising to me is the extreme interest by Wyoming gardeners in making a long-term commitment to fruit-bearing plants.
What a wacky spring in Wyoming! In March, the word ‘drought’ and unusually warm temperatures were beginning to play in the minds of gardeners. Back then we were about two to three weeks ahead in plant development with those warmer than normal temperatures. Today, after weeks of cold, snow, and rain, plant development is exactly where it should be for the end of May in Wyoming.
Webster’s Dictionary defines stupid as slow of mind: obtuse, and given to unintelligent decisions or acts. Well, I am stupid. Who in their right mind would have a garden center filled to the brim with landscape plants in May in Wyoming with snow and cold in the forecast? Or as Forest Gump would say “stupid is as stupid does”. So now that you know I’m stupid, let’s chat about young tree care.
Some would say, ‘spring is for lovers’, but at my garden center, it could be said ‘spring is for planting trees’, because there sure is a lot of tree planting going on. It’s not every day a gardener plants a tree, so they have to be reminded the step-by-step process in getting the tree into their new home within your landscape. Really it’s no different than quarterback Peyton Manning passing footballs—it’s all in the mechanics. So let’s have a chat about planting trees.
You’ve heard the quote “from the ashes rises the phoenix”; it’s meant to say that no matter how bad things get there is always a time for rebirth, to celebrate life. It’s a quote that makes sense for me this spring as we deal with death loss associated with cruel winter-like temperatures last November that decimated nearly thirty percent of our landscape plants in a matter of just three days. And as a garden center proprietor I am reminded daily that spring with its rebirth is all around me. Let’s chat about plant death and the prospects of a great spring.
Every gardener I know is outside doing gardening chores. From planting veggies to inspecting what made it through winter to mowing the yard for the first time, it doesn’t matter—gardeners love being outside doing what they love to do, finally. We’ve been busy at my garden center answering gardener’s questions, and boy-howdy do they have a lot of them!