This week in your Massachusetts garden & landscape
Week of March 20, 2017
This week, we welcome Spring. Although this winter has not been horrible, everyone is very glad to see this day arrive. And what better way to celebrate that to join us at the Boston Flower Show, March March 22–26 at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston. We’ll be in the Urban Homesteading Pavilion, sharing space with MA Department of Agricultural Resources, The Best Bees Company, Yardbirds Backyard Chickens, and The Nature Conservancy – Habitat Network.
This year, the focus is on “Superheroes of the Garden.” Stop by for free “mystery seeds” to get your pollinator garden off to a good start, pollinator tattoos, and much more.
In the meantime:
- Compile a shopping list of landscape and garden plants; planting season is upon us. Include a witchhazel or two on the list. Witchhazels have already been blooming for several weeks in many gardens. It is always such a joy to see plants in bloom so early in the year. The flowers of hybrid witchhazels, such as ‘Arnold’s Promise’, ‘Jelena’, and ‘Diane’, are particularly showy as well as fragrant.
- A fragrant viburnum is always welcome in the garden. They have a spicy sweet scent with lovely blooms that last several weeks. Many also produce colorful fruit that is very attractive to birds and close the season with stunning fall foliage.
- Incorporate some mountain laurels into your home landscape this spring. For some reason this native shrub is often overlooked in favor of rhododendrons in home landscapes. Yet the flowers are at least as attractive as those of rhododendron. Since mountain laurel blooms a little later than rhododendrons, planting them together will extend the bloom season of broadleaf evergreen shrubs in your landscape.
