Petal Patch

Garden notes for beds, vases, and windowsills.

Beds and seasons · 2 min read

Spring mud is not a planting day

Godolphin House, The British wild flower bed   geograph.org.uk   4995235
Photograph by Michael Garlick. CC BY-SA 2.0. Wikimedia Commons.

Stay with a bed that smears in your hand. Spring mud is not a planting day. The rest of the bed can wait.

Do it in order

Do this: wait until the soil crumbles. Do it in the cool part of the day when you can.

The usual miss

Avoid planting because the calendar turned. That habit makes a healthy plant look like a project.

The sign to stop is simple: the soil crumbles instead of smearing. Write the date if you changed water, cut, or place.

A note in "Beds and seasons" should still make sense in another month. Keep the plant's name and the condition, and leave the mood out.

A garden note, not a promise that a plant will thrive. Look again in a week.