DIGGING IT How to get your garden ready for spring and keep it looking good all winter | By Rebekah Sanderlin
It’s easy to think about gardening in April when the outdoor world is awash in brilliant colors, but if you wait until spring to work on your garden you’ll miss out on getting some of the prettiest results. Fall, not spring, is the most important time of the year in your garden as far as preparation goes. According to J.F. Dunn, the owner of Dunn’s Nursery & Garden Shop, there are lots of things you can do right now to make sure your spring is a colorful one and to keep your beds beautiful all winter long.
Chyrsanthemums
Having late fall warm weather means that our ‘mums usually stay pretty right up through Thanksgiving. Nothing beats mums for a homecoming corsage or a burst of color in your planter pots. Plus, when the blooms do fall off you can plant them in a bed that gets at least six hours of sunlight every day. They’ll come back year after year.
Pansies
For winter color in the south there’s no beating pansies. These tough little flowers can survive freezes and even snow and will bloom despite the cold. Pansies should be planted right now (don’t wait until winter!) in an area with lots of sunlight. Mulch around the plants with a two-inch layer of fine organic material and space the plants no more than six inches apart. For an especially brilliant display, plant them in front of evergreens or in large containers.
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