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