5 Early Spring Gardening Mistakes You MUST Avoid

We all get excited when spring comes… We spent long days looking out of the window to our garden, drinking tea or mulled wine, but with little to do. Now, finally, we can start on all those projects we had a long time to plan! New plants, small and big changes – yes, it’s time to get mucky! And I wish you the best of luck with all of them, but… Be careful, there are some snakes in the grass early in the season: typical mistakes we have all made, even experienced gardeners. And some of us are still making them.

So, before you run out into your garden, make a little checklist of mistakes you must absolutely avoid in early spring, so you don’t waste time and effort, and all your green projects can be successful. And here they are!

Forgetting to Aerate Your Soil and Improve Drainage!

This is something I see happening all the time. “Great,” we think, “now there’s lots of rain, mild temperatures, sunlight – that’s all my plants need, apart from some compost…” And here’s the rub… Remember that your green friends eat and breathe from their “feet” as well…

And what happened while you were warming up indoors during the winter season? That the harsh weather and heavy rains have compacted the soil and lowered its ability to drain! So, what will happen if you get heavy rainfalls in spring? You know the answer…

So, as soon as you can, decompact and aerate the soil, and here it depends on your “gardening style” (or is it “ideology”?)…

If you are a no-dig gardener, you will probably have less compacted soil anyway. However, you will most probably need to loosen it up a bit, with a broad fork, or any other tool (there are actually shoes with long spikes if you want to be playful, and they are cheap too!

If you instead like to till the soil, don’t make the mistake of waiting… You may think, “But I don’t need this bed now,” but I suggest you get all your plot loosened up and decompacted straight away. To start with, you won’t need to do it later, next, if you leave it as it is, it will become even harder, it will retain water etc.

In cases where you can’t dig (like if you have a loan, or under perennials) then take a leaf out of the no-till tribe, and use a broad fork or aerator (whichever you prefer and according to your garden’s needs).

Finally, absolutely remember to improve your soil’s drainage. It’s been rainy and it will be rainy for a few months longer! Coarse gardening sand will do for most types of soil (0.5 to 1.0 inches according to how well drained your soil is, 1.0 to 2.5 cm), but for heavy clay, you will need to use gypsum instead.

So, first mistake out of the way…

Working with Wet Soil: It’s an “Indoor / Outdoor” Matter…

This is a mistake that usually comes from eagerness and enthusiasm… Winter’s over so, finally, in early spring we can work outdoors. But here we have the same problem: this is a rainy season as well!

Working the soil when it is wet is not just mucky; it is harder and it won’t give you good results.

What’s more, you should always avoid walking on wet soil because you will compact it! So, we go back to “big mistake number one”…

So, what can you do on and after rainy days instead? To start with, wait till the soil is at least humid, but not wet before you work on it. Next, you can do other tasks, both indoors and outdoors.

For example, outdoors, you can clean up your garden, work on raised beds and containers (with  those you can!), prune etc.

Indoors, you can do everything, and there are many things we leave behind, like checking your tools, looking after your seedlings and sowing trays, checking and repairing your irrigation system… But you can also use those days to plan and to go to nurseries to buy new plants!

Overwatering Your Garden

Am I being repetitive if I remind you that early spring is a wet season? But it’s also a very unpredictable time, and it’s easy to get your soil waterlogged. You can have sudden downpours, or it can rain for weeks and then stop for weeks. Sudden storms are always behind the corner…

It is very hard to get the watering right in spring, even for professionals! So, what is the solution? The first thing is that you must always be flexible in this season; never fall into the huge mistake of saying, “Thursday is my irrigation day.” That’s fine in summer, but not now.

You will need to wait till the top inch of soil (2.5 cm) has dried up, before watering your garden, but that’s the easy bit…

The harder part is not to water before it rains… A few drops won’t make any difference; you’ve just wasted water. But a big storm will find your soil already wet, and it will become waterlogged. So? Always check the weather forecast; they are becoming more and more accurate; imagine how hard it must have been for ancient farmers, checking the sky every night and morning, feeling the winds…

And what happens if you get it wrong once? No problem! But you will be in trouble if this happens over and over again. Remember that root rot is a plant killer.

Planting too Early

True, in the olden days, farmers had to “make their own weather forecast”, but at least they didn’t have to fight with climate change! Nowadays, it’s very easy to get the odd freezing night when you don’t expect it… And this leads to an easy mistake to make: planting too early in spring…

But we all want to get our crops and decorative flowers started as early as possible, so, how can we solve this big problem?

To start with check out the expected last day of frost in your climate zone here:

• USDA zone 2 – May 31 to June 15
• USDA zone 3 – May 15 to May 31
• USDA zone 4 – April 15 to April 30
• USDA zone 5 – April 1 to April 15
• USDA zone 6 – March 15 to March 31
• USDA zone 7 – March 1 to March 15
• USDA zone 8 – February 15 to February 28
• USDA zone 9 – February 1 to February 15
• USDA zone 10 – January (but light)

If you are in USDA zones 11 and above, you are lucky, because there are no days of frost at all.

But these are generic dates, and they vary a lot from place to place; they can help you plan but plant… So, what can you actually do to get it right?

To start with, as usual, check the weather forecast, but that’s not enough.

Wait till temperatures are steadily above 50°F (10°C) for hardy varieties and above 60°F (16°C) for non hardy ones before planting them. I suggest you wait for a week when they never drop under these levels at night.

For extra safety, add some protection to your seedlings… A small polytunnel, but also plastic bottles with the bottom cut off (that’s recycling, so, keep them during winter!) or a transparent bowl, anything will get them through a bad night.

And finally, remember to mulch as soon as you plant your seedlings! It is soil temperature that matters most – cheap straw is fine and warm.

Pruning at the Wrong Time

This is a really massive mistake! You can look at the same shrub or tree in a garden and the one next door and find that one is full of fruits or flowers, the other looks barren and desperate. And that’s usually up to the wrong timing of spring pruning.

You need to know your shrubs and trees, and only then you can decide if you can actually “give them a trim” in March or April.

In fact, even if you can’t see them, many shrubs and trees take months to produce the flower buds, and if you cut them – well, then don’t expect them!

The general rule is to prune spring flowering shrubs after they have bloomed, and prune summer and fall flowering shrubs in late winter or early spring.

One exception is roses, which of course, you must prune in early spring, but don’t do it with lilacs, forsythia etc…

To be precise, before you get your pruning shears out, check if you can or cannot prune it in early spring, or you may regret it!

Now You Can Safely Work on Your Early Spring Gardening Projects!

Thus, now you know the “big 5”, you can safely start working in your garden, making sure you don’t fall into these far too common mistakes, and be confident that no disasters will stop all those early spring projects you “mulled over” during the winter season.

Good luck!