This time of year we are all itching to get in the garden. All it takes is a few warm days, some sunshine and we are all ready to dig in the dirt. At the garden center we get asked all the time, what can I plant now? There are many choices for early spring perennials, and with proper planting, you too can have beautiful blooms this time of year. Just be sure to amend your soil with Van Wilgens Premium Planting Mix and add Jump Start to push root growth so your perennials have a healthy start. Top with mulch so your blooms stay nice and cozy and your good to go! Here a few of my early spring favorites.

  1. Hellebore- Great shade-tolerant deer-resistant perennial that comes in a rainbow of colors
  2. Candytuft (Iberis)- profuse white blooms and neat mounding habit make for a perfect early season edging plant
  3. Columbine (Aquilegia)- Eastern US Native with distinctive show-stopping flowers
  4. Creeping phlox- Gorgeous mounding groundcover with pastel flowers giving way to mossy green foliage
  5. Forget me not (Myosotis)- Long-lasting, true blue flowers make for an unforgettable plant
  6. Rockfoil (Saxifraga)- a super cold hardy plant with early blooms that’s at home in any alpine planter or garden
  7. Yellow Alyssum (Aurinia)- traditional cottage garden border plant that’s also at home in alpine gardens or as a border groundcover
  8. Windflower (Anemone)- The early spring entry in this broad plant family provides huge blooms in an array of colors to brighten up any spring landscape

Will O’Hara

Perennial Manager

It’s always a good day for the team when we can take a minute to talk about some of our favorite plants. Fall is a fantastic time to plant, and an event better time to admire the landscape. We put pen to paper and came up with a baker’s dozen of our favorite Autumn Flowers and Fruits. If you don’t see yours let us know, we love to know what you are planting!

Beauty Berry

Winter Berry

Sweet Autumn Clematis

Sedum

Perennial Plumbago

Dogwood

Snow Berry

Lespidiza

Butterfly Weed

Crab Apple

Hydrangea

Knock Out and Drift Roses

Fall Anenome

Well, we all made it through one of the rainiest spring and early summer seasons we have ever seen. Mother Nature was a huge help to us keeping all of our plants wet with minimal hand watering. With summer now winding down, things are now showing signs of drying out.

As we get into the fall planting season make sure that all plants are properly watered going into the winter season. Plants that are dry in the winter have a greater chance to sustain winter injury. Nighttime temperatures are now getting lower so plants won’t dry out as quickly. Please refer to our Van Wilgen’s Watering Guide to help you through the process.

Have you wondered why heirloom tomatoes taste so much better than those conventional ones from the store?

Conventional tomatoes have been bred for long shelf life, disease resistance, high yield, and, even for their looks! So whether you say to-may-to or to-mah-to, we’re here to help you choose the perfect heirloom tomato variety for you.

What is an Heirloom Tomato?

Heirloom tomatoes come from seeds that have been handed down from farmer to farmer for generations for their special characteristics and varieties must be 50 years old at least. Because of this, heirloom tomatoes have minimal disease resistance.

Heirloom varieties are open-pollinated–meaning that the seeds you collect will produce plants almost identical plants year after year. That’s key to their survival.

Many heirlooms have been passed down from generation to generation. Seeds, once considered valuable property, traveled country to country in pockets or through letters. Varieties come from Central America, Russia, Italy, Japan, France, Germany, and Kentucky. Here are a few of our favorites.

Best Heirloom Tomatoes to Grow

Pink Brandywine– This is hands-down the yummiest and most popular heirloom. Dating back to 1885, these tomatoes ripen late in the season, but delight with huge tomatoes with even bigger flavor. Plus, Pink Brandywine tomatoes grow well in containers.

  • Growth Type: Indeterminate
  • Time to Maturity: 85-100 days
  • Taste and Texture: Intense, full flavor with a rich, velvety texture
  • Light: Full sun
  • Plant Size: 4-9’
  • Spacing: 24-36” apart
  • Staking: Yes – Cage or stake

Black Cherry – This black, heirloom cherry tomato is somewhat disease-resistant and easy to grow – even in containers. The truly striking color makes these cherry tomatoes an instant conversation (or kabob!) starter.

  • Growth Type: Indeterminate
  • Time to Maturity: 65-75 days
  • Taste and Texture: Sweet meets smoky flavor with a meaty texture
  • Light: Full sun
  • Plant Size: 5-8’
  • Spacing: 24-36”
  • Staking: Yes – Cage or stake

Cherokee Purple – Cherokee purple tomatoes may look eccentric, but boy, do they taste good! Believed to be passed down from Cherokee Indians, this variety produces significantly more tomatoes than other heirlooms.

  • Growth Type: Indeterminate
  • Time to Maturity: 75-90 days
  • Taste and Texture: Sweet, juicy, and savory with a thin skin
  • Light: Full sun
  • Plant Size: 4-9’
  • Spacing: 24-36”
  • Staking: Yes – Cage or stake

San Marzano- The long, blocky fruits mature with a small, discreet seed cavity that can be scooped out, leaving all meat. This means much less boiling to get a first-class paste. The shape is also good for canning and excellent for drying.

Why Should I Grow Heirlooms?

We believe the flavor of heirlooms is so superior that no garden would be complete without them. Try a variety this year, and we’re sure you will agree. You will be tasting a little bit of history all summer long.

When you’re organic gardening, be sure to feed tomatoes lots of Tomato-tone during the growing season.

For a printable guide to tomatoes click HERE

Small-scale gardening is a hot topic! Many great books have been written on the subject and growers are developing more and more dwarf trees and compact shrubs to fit those needs. Baby boomers are “downsizing” and Millennials are moving into their first homes, creating a growing demand for ornamental and edible plants that fit comfortably into these smaller spaces.

My personal interest in small-scale gardening is especially keen as I fall into the latter category of those of us who have sold the large family home and are moving into smaller more manageable properties. I purchased a new home about a year ago. A smaller house, on a much smaller lot with a challenging irregular shape. I spent a lot of time over the last several months observing the conditions of the yard and planning the design I would like to implement. I can’t wait to start planting!

My back yard is roughly about 1200 square feet and late last fall I had a patio and walkway installed reducing the potential planting area to under 1000sq. My goal is to create a cozy backyard retreat with small trees, shrubs, perennials, and annuals, along with a small sitting area to enjoy a cup of tea in the morning and maybe a late afternoon drink.

Because the space is small and I am hoping to keep maintenance at a moderate level I am completely eliminating the lawn. There are no trees in my small space. It’s currently a blank page other than the pavers but there are several large maples surrounding the yard creating a high shade situation that will influence the plants I choose. Before I can start putting them in the ground however I will have to deal with the soil.

I have designed and planted many gardens but this may be the most challenging soil I have ever worked with. Bright orange clay! Clay soil is composed of very fine particles. It absorbs water very slowly and holds it for a very long time. It can also become very compacted, making it difficult for plant roots to penetrate the soil.

I know that I need to improve the soil and adding organic matter is the first step. But because I have only a little experience with clay I stopped by the main store and had a chat with Stacy. Compost was something we both agreed would be beneficial but she gave me an additional tip that I was unaware of. Gypsum, she said would help reduce compaction, improve drainage, decrease acidity and eliminate soil salts. Sounds good to me!

With all the rain we’ve had I will have to wait a while until my soil dries up to begin the process. It’s never a good idea to work with clay when it’s wet because that can add to the compaction problems. Once the compost and gypsum have been turned into the soil I can finally start the planting process.

I have big plans for my small-scale garden and I would love to share them with you as my cozy retreat begins to take shape. Choosing the right plant for the right location can be challenging but that’s just part of the fun!

Cecile Bardinelli, Guilford Garden Mart Manager

Big or small, that patch of earth in your backyard is a part of the planet we live on. Celebrate Earth Day by being kind to it. Like you, all of us at the garden center enjoy digging in the dirt and outdoor living. Here are a few of our favorite ways to “go green” this week and year-round.

• Plant a Tree. So for us, this is a no-brainer. Aside from the fact that we love beautiful the green canopy they create, they produce the oxygen we breathe. The amount produced by an individual tree is dependent on its species, maturity, and health. They also assist in filtering pollution from the air, and in reducing erosion.

• Mulch your Garden. Applying a layer of mulch to your flower beds not only limits erosion, but it also reduces the need to water. Mulching also means less weeding, and that’s a win/win

• Plant Milkweed and Fill a Planter with Annuals. Though it may be a weed to some, this plant is the only food eaten by the kind of caterpillars that become monarch butterflies. While you’re at it, fill one of your annual planters with flowers that welcome pollinators. The results will be beautiful and beneficial!

• Grow Your Own. Nothing tastes like vegetables that you’ve grown yourself. Whether you just grow a pot of tomatoes on the patio or you expand your large vegetable garden, you’ll be able to say, “I grew this, and it’s delicious!” ​

These are all kinds of practical ways to be kind to the earth 365 times a year. In the Garden is a great place to start.

My wife had a moment of panic last week, she had to dig deep down in our chest freezer to find the very last batch of tomatoes from last year’s garden. She and I spent hours processing and freezing as many vegetables as we could to use throughout the winter. It’s a sad moment when we finally run out of our own veggies from the garden but hopefully, it means we are closer to warmer months ahead.

Speaking of warmer months, my Dad is already busy planning out the garden and finding ways to make it better. We have been combating everyone’s arch-nemesis, WEEDS, by putting a VERY thick layer of mainely mulch in-between the rows and it has helped keep the weeds down and let the veggies thrive. Last year my wife taught me how to flash freeze green beans and one night while she was out with some friends, she left me in charge of processing a whole bushel that my daughter and I had harvested earlier in the day. Nora and I paid extra attention to keep the purple beans separate from the green beans. That evening after I trimmed the whole pile of beans, again being careful to keep the purple separate from the green. I worked in batches boiling the beans for a few minutes and then dunking them in a large bowl of ice and water. I finally get to the big batch of purple beans and that’s when I discover that purple green beans turn GREEN after cooking them! All that work separating and they all end up green. The boiling water cooks them just enough to kill any of the bad stuff and the ice water stops the cooking process so that the beans won’t be mushy when we use them later in the winter. After the green beans cooled, I spread them in a single layer on a cookie sheet and stuck them in the freezer. An hour or so later I separated them into freezer bags, labeled them with the date, and stack ’em in the chest freezer. Even though the purple beans didn’t stay purple, it was so nice to have a small piece of summer with our dinners throughout the winter. We can’t wait to get started!

Ryan Van Wilgen
For as long as I can remember, there was a thin line between winter weather and spring weather. A question often asked is, “what’ll happen to my bulbs that have popped?”
Good question. Most spring bulbs, with the exception of tulips, are very hardy and very reliable. Most come from mountain climates where the weather is extreme. Connecticut is slightly more hospitable than the mountains of Tibet, Turkey, and the Swiss Alps. Not to worry, my suggestion is to let nature take its course. When the weather dips in temperature, many bulbs shrink back into the soil.
Tulips are a different matter. Should the temperature dramatically, cover the emerged foliage with burlap or towels for the night. If blooms or buds are facing cold temps, just cover clumps with a five-gallon bucket secured with a brick. Tulip flowers are delicate. Be sure to remove the covers in the morning to keep flowers from bolting.

It’s time to start your seeds. Most seeds should be started about 6 weeks before our last frost day. In the gardening world, we like to use Mother’s Day as the last frost date.

For cold weather crops like peas, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, spinach, and kale you can sow them outside now. We have a great variety of cool weather vegetable seeds to choose from. I have read that is it lucky to plant peas on St. Patrick’s Day. Not sure if other cool-weather plants will bring you luck but they sure will be delicious fresh-picked from your garden this year. Remember New England weather is erratic. We may get a few cold/frost nights where you will want to cover your seedlings with a warm harvest blanket to protect them.

There are many ways to start your seeds. You can begin them in starter kits, trays, and peat pots. Peat pots can be placed right into the ground when ready. Espoma Organic Seed Starting Mix and Fafard Seed Starter Mix are excellent soils to start your baby seeds. Don’t forget to label your seeds.

If you have a south-facing window place your seeds there. If not, we have many different grow lights to help your seeds get the approximate 15 hours of daylight they need.

Flowers have many different attributes. Start your favorite flowers by seed now. Some flowers/herbs are excellent pollinators and help keep certain bugs away from your vegetable garden. Marigolds attract bees and butterflies. Nasturtiums, besides being edible, also help keep away many unwanted insects. The very fragrant lavender is also an excellent general pest repellent flower to use in your garden.

Stop in and get your seeding started right away!

This time of year, one of the most popular questions we receive at the garden this time of year is definitely; Is it too early to plant? The general rule of thumb is if you can dig a hole (no frost in the ground), it is ok to plant. The majority of our perennial and nursery stock is cold climates grown to our growing region and they handle the colder temperatures.
Also, there are some general planting guidelines that we like to offer when it comes to installing plant material. We recommend digging a hole twice the size of the root ball. Also, it is really a great idea to amend the current soil with VW Premium Planting mix (Topsoil, Compost, and Peat Moss). After the hole is completely filled in, an application of VW Jumpstart transplant fertilizer should be made to the plant. If you should have any additional plants about planting instructions or cold-sensitive plants, do not hesitate to contact us at the garden center.
Happy Gardening!