Just about everyone knows that pansies are the safest bet when you can stand it no longer and have to plant something. But did you know that there is really a longish list of suitable plants for our early spring weather? In fact, there are some plants that we can enjoy now through our cool spring that absolutely will not tolerate the heat of spring temperatures just two zones south of us. Those are the cool season plants. They prefer and perform best in a cool climate. The annuals among them go to seed by late spring and are done. The perenials tend to go dormant early when summers are hot here. Cold tolerant plants, on the other hand, can be acclimated to colder temperatures and even light frost, but carry on happily into the summer. Using both will give us a gardening boost in the early season when most of the perennials are just waking up and starting to grow.
Among the cool season annuals are some of the most beautiful annual flowers for home gardens. They are also among the least used because of their short season. I like to use them in the many containers I plant each year and then take them out when they have finished flowering. This, of course, is the work of a plant-mad woman who loves to have her fingers in the dirt! If you would like to enjoy these flowers, but that sounds like too much work, plant some in your flower beds where their absence won't be noticed when the other plants mature.
Sweet peas, godetia and schizanthus are prominent members of the cool season group. Many of us have planted sweet peas along with our other garden plants and had them expire in the mid-June heat without reaching their bloom peak. They need to be planted "as soon as the ground can be worked", as it says on the seed packets. An old rule of thumb said to plant them on Good Friday (along with the potatoes). I don't understand that rule for either plant since Good Friday is tied to a moveable holiday (Easter) That can vary from March 22 to April 25. Very rarely is the ground thawed on March 22 in our part of zone 4. Anyway, I digress! Plant them as soon as the ground has thawed.
