Sneaky spring inspires a garden experiment

Well, it’s official. Spring not only snuck up on me, it appears to have whooshed by like deer on their way to eat my hostas.

As I survey the garden, I see a lot of must-do’s that didn’t get done.

Only a lucky few clematis caught the attention of my pruners before they started putting on serious growth.

Plenty of perennials still have rather unslightly brown stems sticking up through robust new growth.

I apparently forgot about a large number of hydrangeas I planted last summer and fall, so few were pruned.

And plenty of beds still have a lot of leaves that haven’t broken down at all yet, leading to a rather untidy appearance.

Rather than engage in self-flagellation with a trowel, I’ve decided this is actually a great garden experiment, and here’s what I’ve learned so far.

The unpruned clematis are mostly just fine. A few of the later-flowering varieties have sent up all new shoots, so when I have the chance I can just cut off the old stems. Others, such as ‘Perle d’Azur’ and ‘Prince Charles,’ which seem to land between pruning appropriate for those that bloom on old wood and again on new wood (group 2) and those that bloom only on new wood (group 3), have some old stems with buds and are also send up new shoots.

It works out great because I’ll have the opportunity to see them bloom a little taller, which might be exactly right for their growing situation.

I’ve changed to a zoned approach at cleanup, so I’m taking one area at a time and doing everything that needs to be done in it: cutting back, edging, weeding and dividing. By the time I get to the old stems in perennials, I’m usually able to just break them off by hand, making tool-less cleanup a swift task.

I wouldn’t choose to leave perennials allium stems standing again though, as they are nearly impossible to pick out from among the robust foliage, and they look terrible right now.

The weeds, by the way, actually aren’t that bad, perhaps because I’ve not disturbed the soil with raking or pulling back the leaves that fell over winter.

The hydrangeas, however, look terrible and do need attention. Fortunately they are young enough and small enough that I just need to cut off last year’s spent flowers and any dead branches, which unfortunately are rather numerous.

Because I’m late — due to an early spring; most years I’d be right on time — several of the self-sown seedlings are up and identifiable, so I’m able to deal with them at the same time, either by thinning some out or making a note of where I want to move them to when they put on a little more size.

It will be interesting to see if there are any notable changes in the garden as part of this “experiment.”

In the meantime, I have the perfect retort should any of my more on-the-ball gardening friends notice the semi-unkempt state of the garden.

“It’s an experiment. Obviously.”