Spring Blooms, Spring Cleaning in the Garden & the New York Times

I was on The National last night begging people to slow down with their thoughts about spring gardening. Unless you live in Vancouver and Victoria and all those other BC enclaves of warmth, we’ve got a few more weeks of grim weather.

The rest of country has to put with bragging from our western colleagues, but we have these gorgeous little snowdrops to keep us company while strolling through the garden. If you haven’t got a mass of them, put them on the list of bulbs you’ll be ordering to plant this autumn. They always surprise me with their determination to push up through all the leaves that are still lying about waiting for worms to consume them.

Meantime, leave those leaves alone they will nourish the soil pretty quickly.  Cut back perennials to within three inches of the ground, especially cold season ornamental grasses. They want to get some sun on them as quickly as possible.  But wait calmly ad patiently until things really do warm up in April.

Be sure to have a look at today’s New York Times Arts & Leisure Section Texts without Context by Michiko Kakutani. It’s a really great round up of the arguments that should be going on about intellectual property and all the ramifications of social networking.