And that's because every fall I leave a lot of dead annuals in place, a lot of perennials untrimmed and more. I tell myself that, as weary as I am with garden chores now, is how excited I will be for any excuse to get out into the garden when spring comes.
Every year, I believe myself. And every spring, I rush out to the garden on that first warm, sunny day, to make my inspection. At that point, I am usually tempted to go into hibernation. The amount of work out there looks insurmountable.
It's not. But one would go quietly crazy even considering the task as a whole. Instead, we break it down into steps. Some people like to approach spring cleanup one chore at a time. That way they can set out each day with a tool or two - no more - and break themselves in gradually. As I said - step by step.
Others (myself included) prefer to go at it garden by garden. That way, at the end of a day's work we can look back and get some sense of accomplishment.
Right now, my gardens are full of dead foliage, worn out mulch, and the detritus of hundreds of now dormant perennials and long-departed annuals. There seem to be hundreds of shrubs in need of pruning; climbers in need of restaking and more - all of which must be finished before I can take trowel in hand and start to dig up, divide and replant. Step by step by step.
The first step should be tiny.
Our gardening muscles are not yet limbered up. So we need to do something satisfying but not too strenuous. Warm-up gardening. For me this means pruning the Japanese maples. Getting rid of the tiny dead twigs, cleaning up crossed branches, opening up the center of each small tree to permit the air to circulate. Tiny trimmings pile up around me, but they can wait - there is much that will need to be raked so I may as well save it.
With the maples trimmed, I move to other trimming jobs. Many of last year's perennials still have dead flower stalks pointing skyward. Dead daylily scapes pull out easily, but hostas want to play tug of war. I don't fight - I get out my pruners and cut those, and the old stalks of Sedum down to the ground. Remember - it's early and we are still taking it easy.
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