How to Prepare Spring Flower Beds
Winter is hard on gardens. Debris from trees and shrubs collects on the beds you cleared off last fall. Weeds begin sprouting long before your hardiest flowers can be transplanted outside. Preparing your garden for spring flowers is a necessary chore, but it isn't a complicated one. Starting the beds off right each spring ensures they will produce healthy flowers well into summer. The proper maintenance at the beginning also saves time later as you won't be trying to work around plants that are now in the ground. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Remove all debris from the flower bed---fallen branches, leaves and old garden detritus. Add these to the compost pile or throw away.
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Remove winter mulches and straw mulches from perennial flower beds and dispose of them. Work around any flower shoots coming up, taking care not to disturb them as you remove the mulch.
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3
Weed annual beds. Throw away weeds that have seed heads, as composting these may leave weed seeds in your compost that will later get spread in your flower beds.
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Place a 3-inch layer of fresh compost on all the flower beds. Till the compost into the beds with a hoe or hand held cultivator, taking care not to disturb roots and bulbs of perennial flowers. Work the soil to a 8-inch depth in annual beds and a 5-inch depth in perennial beds.
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Fertilize each bed. Use a balanced fertilizer on annual and most perennial beds, following label instructions for exact application amount. Apply a phosphate-rich fertilizer or specially formulated bulb fertilizer for bulb beds.
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Apply a fresh 3-inch layer of new mulch to the flower beds once the soil begins to warm up in mid- to late-spring. Use wood chips or other organic mulches on the beds.
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Transplant annual flowers outside once the all danger of frost has passed or when specified on the plant tag for specific varieties.
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Tips & Warnings
Use a sod cutter once the ground has thawed to remove sod and thatch to start a new flower bed.
Mark bulb locations with plant markers in fall so you know where the later-blooming ones are during spring cultivation.
Do not disturb the beds until the soil has thawed to an 8-inch depth; otherwise, you may damage dormant roots systems.
