Spring is Coming!

Tips: Get Ready for Spring

Are you anxious for spring? Are you ready to get into your garden and start digging and planting? Do you look out your frosty windows with longing?

While digging and planting are still a ways off for much of the U.S. there are some things you can do now that will help speed the days into spring.

If you are still buried under a foot of snow, you can still start seedlings indoors. All you need is seeds, starter pots, starter medium, a sunny window or a grow light. Watching the birth of new life for your garden can go a long way to ease those pent-up trapped indoors feelings. And you'll have a head start on your garden!

If you get a nice day and the snow has melted, grab your gloves and head on outside. You can pick up sticks and small limbs that have fallen in your yard over winter and pick up trash that hardy north winds have blown your way. Get a garden rake and carefully uncover tulips, hyacinth, daffodils and crocus. Rake up leaves and smaller sticks that have fallen and move those to the compost bin.

Now would be a great time to start a small water garden feature that you can enjoy indoors until warm weather arrives. All you need to create a small water garden is a large pot, and a couple of water garden plants. You can get a variety of pots at your local garden center that do not have a drain hole in the bottom. Porcelain or plastic works best. Place your pot in a sunny window, I do not recommend a grow light for a water garden as algae grows rapidly under a grow light. Fill the pot with water, place your chosen water plants and you're done! It is really that simple.

If you are desperate for blooms, there are a few ways to curb that need too. You can cut forsythia branches and bring them indoors to bloom early. Cut the branches to the desired length. If you have a very large vase, long braches are really a beautiful choice. The amount of time it takes for the branches to bloom will depend upon the size of the buds on your branches. So choose branches with the biggest buds.

Another quick fix for indoors blooms might be to plant a bulb in a vase of water. Good bulb choices would be daffodils or hyacinth.