Getting back to the garden

Warm weather is bringing experienced and amateur gardeners to nurseries seeking advice on how to create their next nature masterpieces.

“February, we usually start picking up,” said Marvin’s Gardens Manager Sheryl Curry on Wednesday. “The weather starts warming up like today and people get antsy.”

During Mardi Gras season, people were getting their yards ready for company. As for Easter, some planters believe that you are supposed to have everything in the ground by Good Friday, Curry said.

February is the time people are getting their ground ready and refreshing their beds.

“They’re either amending the soil, adding nutrients back to the soil, could be manure, compost, peat moss, soil conditioner, and then fertilizing it,” Curry said.

But with the weather going back and forth from cold to hot, other planters play it safe by growing vegetables in pots. It’s easier to protect plants by pulling the pots into the home due to inclement weather.

Growing better bush tomatoes are great for green thumbs living in apartments or smaller spaces where big gardens are not feasible.

Early girl tomatoes are popular.

“Right now, everybody wants to plant early girl because it can take cooler temperatures,” Curry said.

In Southern Louisiana, mid to late March is tomato planting time, according to LSU AgCenter Horticulturist Dan Gill.

“Never put all your eggs in one basket and plant just one variety of tomatoes,” Gill said.

For warmer temperatures, both Curry and Gill recommend planting celebrity and creole tomatoes.

While heirloom tomatoes are growing popular because of their flavorful taste, Gill cautions consumers.

“Heirlooms have very little disease resistance,” Gill said. “Some years they do well in Louisiana, and some years they produce very little.”

Fertilizing grass is recommended at the end of February or beginning of March.

“It just really depends on the temperature,” Curry said. “We recommend you start fertilizing with a weed and feed.”

Waiting to fertilize the yard too late could result in a catastrophe for lovers of lush, green grass.

“If you do it at the right time, it will really help you,” Curry said. “So many people don’t do it at the right time. They’re like, ‘Oh, it’s almost summer (time) I need to do it because my weeds are this tall.’

“And it’s too late.”

If someone buys a new house and wants to start a flower bed, “spend most of your money on the soil,” Curry said.

She equates the importance of a flower bed’s soil to the foundation of one’s home. “The foundation you make is the bed,” Curry said. “You spend most of your money the first year. And then slowly add your shrubs. ...”

Overzealous customers have a tendency to purchase everything all at once and get overwhelmed with all that is required to create a flower bed.

This is why she recommends laying out the foundation first with the soil.

As a visual person, Curry helps to ease customer’s stress by staging shrubs and flower so that customers are to see how the bed layout would appear.

Knowing the measurements of a bed will help nursery workers better serve the customer with plant selection.

Whenever the planting begins for green thumbs, it is suggested to do it sooner rather than later.

“Early planting is important,” Gill said.