April garden notes | Miss Mustard Seed

Most of my April gardening work has been tidying up the beds, pruning old blooms off the hydrangeas, raking leaves, and weeding.  Oh, the maple saplings and onion grass have been prolific this year, so pulling them out of the beds has been my primary objective.  Instead of spending a couple of long days weeding, I decided to work in small chunks.  Every day, after my morning walk, I put on my gardening boots and gloves and would fill one bucket, sometimes two.  I worked my way around the house in this manner and just finished the last bed last week.  I know from experience that overwhelming projects can be easily completed in bite-sized pieces, but it still always surprises me.  Jeff has been taking the same approach with trimming bushes and hedges.  He also put weed and feed on the lawn and cleaned up along the curb.

When we bought a house on a peninsula, we didn’t really consider how much curb we would need to edge and maintain, but we are aware of it now!  Over 3/4 of our property line is curb!  It is such a pain to stay on top of the leaves that collect and the weeds that sprout up.  But Jeff went around with a weed whacker, followed by a snow shovel and a lawn refuse bag, and got it neat and clean.

Here are a few bright spots in the garden in April…

I planted two snowball viburnum bushes two years ago and, while they are still small, they are both producing blooms this year, which is exciting!  I’m waiting until they are at their prime to clip a bouquet, which will probably be this week.  Of course, I’ll set up a still life vignette and get a bunch of pictures so I can paint them.

The espalier apple trees along the front of the house blossomed early in April.  I really haven’t done much with them since I planted them, aside from fertilizing and watering, but I feel quite proud of myself!

I do need to prune this month to trim branches growing away from the trellises.

I was hoping they might get some blooms on them so I could have a bouquet of apple blossom branches, but that didn’t happen.  I’ll probably still style the leafed-out branches in a vase anyway.

I trimmed half of my hydrangea bushes in the fall and the other half in the spring to see which option was better.  So far, all seem to be doing the same.  I sort of preferred pruning them in the fall so the bushes looked neater over the winter, but we’ll see once they are in full bloom if it is better to wait until early spring.

When I was pruning the hydrangeas, I also cut back all the liriope borders so the new growth wouldn’t be hidden under last year’s blades.

The Henrii Clematis is climbing up the little obelisk, and I think it will grow tall enough to wrap around the bird house this year.  I’m excited to see how it blooms.  I think I only got one or two blooms last year.

Another small spring chore I took care of was cleaning out the bird bath.  One day, while I was working at my desk, which has a view of the front garden, I saw a robin grabbing soggy, decomposing leaves with his beak and throwing them out of the bowl.  When the robins are cleaning for you, you know it’s time to take care of it.  Okay, okay, I’ll get it cleaned out.  I hooked the hose back up, rinsed out the bowl, and filled it with fresh water.  I really enjoy watching the comings and goings of all the birds and squirrels at the watering hole, and the activity has picked up now that the water is clean and topped off.

I put a broken whelk in the center of the birdbath last year, and it’s such a pretty little moment for me.  I see birds perched on it or notice the reflection, and it makes me smile.

The pool will be opened this week, so I’ll show how things are looking in the back garden soon…

PS – Tomorrow is the last day to sign up for Pup Club Prints if you want to be a founding member.  You can find more information and sign up HERE.