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You don’t have to wait any later to begin enjoying your landscape. Watching nature wake up from its long winter nap can be a brand new experience for the whole family, and not one anyone will soon forget. Signs are all over your yard as your plants begin to break their winter dormancy. Often, however, you must look carefully to see them because they make their presence known with a whisper rather than a grand flourish.
Right now, you can check your trees and shrub for buds. They’ve been on the branches all winter. Leaf buds and flower buds were set before last year’s leaves fell. Keep watch and you’ll see nature unfold before your very eyes. In spring, buds swell before they open up to reveal their green or colored contents, and many spring flowering trees and shrubs will dazzle you with their colorful displays before the green leaves emerge and begin their task of making food. This year, watch them wake up by being up close, carefully examining their buds as they prepare to break open and bring forth their bounty of beauty.
Don’t confine your moments of awe to just looking up at tree buds or looking straight ahead at budding shrubs; look down at the ground, too. Be careful where you step, though. Perennials and spring bulbs are poking up, checking out whether it’s time for them to get up and begin their spring show of color. Be careful not to step on them. In a few weeks, or even days, bulbs like crocus will be the advance party to let us know that spring is right around the corner. They are probably more reliable than the groundhog, too.
Crocus can be anywhere. Besides the early risers in your spring bulb beds, these colorful little plants may also grow in your lawn. If you didn’t plant them there, try it in the fall so your lawn will come alive with color before greening up. Crocus is the only spring bulb that you can safely plant in the lawn. It’s the lowest growing, as well as the first bloomer. So, its leaves will not go through the lawnmower. In fact, the show will probably be over and the crocuses will be back to bed before you have to get out your lawnmower.
Soon after the crocuses take their final bow, daffodils will take the stage, followed by tulips and hyacinths. Meanwhile shrubs like forsythia will begin their show. Rhododendrons, lilacs and other spring flowering shrubs will take their turn in the spotlight. If this year’s show didn’t provide the spectacle you’d like, add more plants and different plants to your landscape. If you plan well, you can enjoy a visual show of nature’s beauty all year long.
If I’ve presented some good ideas that you’d like to incorporate into your landscape but you just don’t know how to start, may I suggest that you start by meeting with one of our creative landscape designers? They can take your wishes and incorporate them into a design that you can install. Or, our landscape professionals can do the work, and let you just enjoy the results.
