Use an Early, Medium, Late Approach to Keep Flowers in Bloom Any Time of the Year
After being locked up all winter (especially over the past two years), it’s easy to get carried away with your summer plans, including those involving plants. You can go to a garden center with the intention of collecting some seedlings and materials and somehow get more plants that you can place in your garden or yard.
But once you’re inside and smell the freshly watered tomato plants with metallic background notes for the first time, it can be tough to keep yourself from impulsive purchases. But the New York Times’ Margaret Roach has several annual strategies to tackle this age-old problem, including what she calls an early-medium-late approach. Here’s what you need to know.
Prepare for your gardening season
First of all, Roach recommends making a list: “Write down what you expect in the garden every month of the year, be it flowers, foliage, or some kind of structural effect,” she writes . Also include qualities you look for in plants, such as their ability to attract butterflies , beneficial insects, and birds .
How to Choose an Early, Medium, Late Approach to Garden Shopping
If you have used bulbs in your beds before, you are already somewhat familiar with the early, medium, late approach — determine which combination of bulbs will keep your flowers blooming throughout the season. But Roach explains that this mindset is useful for more than just light bulbs:
Apply the idea of a long show to every effect you want, visual or otherwise, from your potential signature color, to the possibility of scent for months, and even to leaf fall if you add warmth at the far end of the room. season is the goal … Soil moisture and temperature conditions change the exact timing and intensity from year to year, but you know: even what is traditionally considered the season of fall foliage can be extended with preliminary research.
But be prepared to put in a little effort to find plants that don’t peak until mid to late summer, says Chris Beites, editor of GrowerTalks, a greenhouse trade magazine . “What blooms will be ahead, along with the roses and hydrangeas everyone is asking for, ” he told the New York Times . “Good garden centers also have everything else, but maybe in the back room too. Ask.”