First snowdrops appearing under the Japanese Maple

Although we passed the winter solstice only a week ago, signs of spring are appearing in Vancouver. The weather outside was uncommonly warm and not raining so I went outside to see what has started to come up, pulled weeds and made plans for 2014. In no particular order, here are some things to do/think about right now.

1. Weeding! Now is a great time to get ahead of all the weeds that are starting to appear. The soil in my garden is loose and damp so the weeds are easy to pull up.
2. Cutting dead stuff. If you didn’t do so before, now is a good time to cut back all those late blooming fall flowers which are black and rotted. Ew.
3. Trimming lavenders. Normally I trim my lavenders once the flowers die off in the fall, but others have advised me to wait until spring. Last fall I trimmed half and left the other half; the ones that were trimmed did much better and are now in nice round balls. the others were pushed over by the snow. Boo. Next year: trim in fall!
   

   Early crocus (croci?)

4. Gently move dead leaves away from emerging bulbs. Most of my garden is full of dead leaves which I am leaving in place for now. I pulled the leaves away from some of the bulbs that are coming up, and the rest I will leave for now and maybe dig under later…
5. Go through catalogs and decide what to plant for this year and order early.
6. Decide what really didn’t work last year and change things up. This year I am removing the weedy strawberry/poppy patch in the front and will either convert that to a vegetable patch or plant a fruit tree. Previously, there was an Italian plum in that location, which died after our renovation.

Daphne blooming already. Out of focus!

The only two gardening “resolutions” I am making this year are to (1) get out and do a little bit every day so that things don’t get out of hand and (2) to save seeds as gifts for my gardening friends. This year I received a few packets of seeds (below) for Christmas, including poppies and sweetpeas, my favorites. Awesome gift! Thank you!

Awesome Christmas gift!