Perennial To-Do list

January

• Prune and spray apple tree
• Rake leaves away from all the snowdrops and crocus shoots
• Rake the larch needles and branches away.
• Cut away dead stuff
• Get Mike the tree guy to come and cut away branches and dead trees
• Make an attempt to plan the garden.
• Cut branches of Forsythia and bring indoors.

February

• Despite what the seed packets say, it is too early to plant peas, but a good time to plant fava beans.
• Weed the area beside the driveway
• Put big piles of branches and cuttings in compost
• Pull up crabgrass at edges of yard and in the raspberries.
• Pick the biggest weeds from the front yard.

March

• Finally throw out the Christmas poinsettia and other suffering festive arrangements
• Mulch/manure garden boxes
• Mulch/manure raspberries, check branches to make sure they are all still tied up.
• Inspect and re-tie up any raspberries that have come undone
• Oil the cedar boxes with Tung oil.

April

• Place soaker hoses in raspberries
• Start planting veggie beds
• Power wash all the stone, the front steps especially under the yews
• Put the peony rings around the peonies

May

• Weed, weed, weed, weed
• Cut back the salal and make sure that it doesn’t interfere with blueberries.

June

• Weed, weed, weed, weed, weed
• Deadhead the rhodos

July

• Buy a new fountain and find somewhere to put the broken one (on the back of the chimney?)
• Rust-proof paint the wheelbarrow and various tools.
• Manure, compost, soil amendment, fertilize
• Keep the grass between the flagstones clipped
• Deadhead more rhodos
• Add soil to the rock garden
• Continue to clean out under the brush
• Reduce “the pile”
• Deal with the overhanging cedars from the neighbors.

August

• Cut back old raspberry canes – NOTE: this year save the hollow canes for bee homes.
• Sieve compost from last year
• Add lime to garden
• Plant winter lettuce, carrots, spinach, kale.
• Split lilies.

September

• Prune hedges around raspberries, and cedar above raspberries
• Prune lauryl hedge
• Cut down the lauryl tree on South East corner of property (WHAT? I’VE DONE THIS BEFORE?)
• Make sure the salal isn’t interfering with blueberries.

October

• Pull up all the anemones in the summer/fall.
• Cut all the  plants back as they die so I won’t have to deal with rotted dead stuff in the spring.
• Weed, fertilize and mulch raspberries. Figure out what fertilizer adds sweetness.
• Cover fall/winter crops.

November

• Remove the dead leaves from crocosmia, black eyed susan, daisies.
• Make sure that the raspberries are still tied up.
• Trim hedges and prune near the power line.
• Weed, weed, weed
• DON’T PLANT BROADBEANS NOW.

December

• Look around at what might get damaged by snow: cut off dried hyrangeas and tie up the hemlocks.
• Lime