My garden to-do list for February and March

• Finish winter pruning and haul brush pile to curb for collection
• Clean up beds, cut down dead stalks, etc.
• Uproot or cut suckers of lilac, snowberry, and Oregon grape from spots where they’re not wanted
• Dig up or at least cut down plants of invasive Italian arum (aka Arum italicum or lords-and-ladies)
• Pull up maple and laburnum seedlings, shotweed, and other weeds
• Lay out soaker hoses. (They won’t be needed until June, but it’s much easier to wrestle them into place when plants are small)
• Edge the beds that adjoin lawns
• Acquire materials for mulching mix: bagged manure, lime, slow-release fertilizer, kelp meal, bone meal, alfalfa pellets
• Mix above materials with compost to make Alfa-Omega* mix for mulching, and distribute among the beds
• Repot potted delphiniums and hostas to larger pots; ditto the rose “Fragrant Cloud,” which was grown from a cutting and therefore is on its own rather feeble roots, rather than grafted onto a vigorous rootstock
• Seed tomatoes
• Execute the colchicum-clematis move as per plan.

*Alfalfa plus the “end product,” i.e., manure.

I’ve already done some of these things; others are in progress. Pruning was easier this spring due to the acquisition last fall of a ladder designed for use in gardens, as opposed to home maintenance.

While racing around doing the tasks on the to-do list, it’s nice to stop and admire something that looks wonderful.

Hellebore photos taken Mar. 6/21