I got a message from a nursery company I buy from called Lots of Plants. The message was about planting hydrangeas. They essentially suggested that the best time to plant hydrangeas is before the last frost in your area. Their reasoning is simple and that reason is it gives the plants time to settle in before they start their bloom cycles in May and June. They went on to say that when you plant a hydrangea that is blooming it puts a lot of stress on the plant. Why stress? Because it’s blooming AND trying to grow roots.

This all makes great sense to me and I prefer planting plants when they’re smaller and dormant. It’s just easier.

Plants arrived from BloomBox this morning. I didn’t really order things that were susceptible to cold, but except for a cedar tree, I did plop things into my unheated greenhouse to join other residents. As long as I have the room, that’s fine, but once I start my seeds and have seedlings and have to plant my chili peppers all temporary residents will come out.

Something BloomBox did this spring is label dormant plants. You would think people would know a dormant plant is NOT a dead plant, but sadly so many do not know that —-which means headaches for plant nurseries.

It’s been snow flurrying here today and now a cold wind is howling through the woods . So happy I have greenhouse space, but if I didn’t I would probably move plants into my garage for the next few nights. I also used to tarp my plants on my porch at night. I used greenhouse fabric. I don’t know how else to describe it sometimes they call it frost cloth or frost blanket. I did not have great success with plastic tarps, and found sheets never do anything but be too heavy on plants and get too wet.

I don’t get too terribly upset by the Yo Yo weather anymore. It’s going to be what it’s going to be. People freak out, and take today for example. All over Facebook I saw people telling everyone to cut all of their blooming daffodils and others wondering if they had to cover ALL of their shrubs outside.

People, it’s March. There is the whole in like a lion and out like a lamb, or in like a lamb and out like a lion….and every bit of weather craziness in between. There have been plenty of times over my lifetime when March bought a fair bit of snow and truly wild weather, and the gardens all survived.

Daffodils live outside just like our shrubs and trees. By all means offer plants which have been in a greenhouse and aren’t yet planted some protection. But we can’t cover everything and wrap it in cotton wool. Your garden is tougher than you think.

Happy gardening.