Shipshape perennial beds job for spring > Right tools make work a lot easier

By mid-May, most perennials have begun to emerge, with those in sunny, protected areas reaching full form in just a few weeks. But for a few slow-growing perennials, or those hit particularly hard by winter’s insufficient snow cover, emergence will continue into late May. Some tender perennials, roses and other woody specimens won’t let us know they made it through winter until early June.

Regardless of Mother Nature’s spring time frame, it’s certainly not too early to start working the perennial bed, getting it in shape for summer. By now, most curious gardeners have removed the mulch, eliminating habitat for slugs and other plant pests. With mulch removed and dead leaves raked away, the perennial bed is ready for some rehabilitation.

Before the perennials begin to grow quickly, plan to spend a few hours tidying up their bed. First, you’ll need to load the wheelbarrow with a few essential tools. You’ll need a spade, a set of hand pruners and a steel rake. You might want to bring along a 5-gallon bucket, to make debris removal easier. If weeds are cropping up already, toss a hand cultivator into the wheelbarrow as you head off to the perennial bed.

The first order of business should be to clean up debris. With leaves and mulch raked away, each plant should be visible either by its new growth or by last year’s dead, fallen stems. Starting with the plants that have begun to emerge, carefully remove the debris, cutting it with the hand pruners and placing it in the bucket.

Do the same with plants that aren’t yet showing new growth. Resist the temptation to pull out debris without first cutting it with pruners. Although it’s dead, the tissue is often not fully decomposed: Pulling rather than clipping can result in damage to the crown and growing points of the new shoots. Some dead stems are so tenacious you might pull the entire plant right out of the ground.

Empty the dead plant material filling your bucket into the wheelbarrow and cart it off to the compost pile. This fall, that compost will make an excellent and nutritious mulch for the perennial bed.

The next step to sprucing up the perennial bed is to cut out the old growth, decayed tissue and winter-damaged plant parts. Trim dead tissue back to the moist green pith. The purpose of trimming this material is to eliminate habitat for disease, to provide a clean site for the plant to heal, and to open up the area around the base of the plant to identify and eliminate weeds.

Next, redefine the edge of the perennial bed. With a spade or sod cutter, trim away a sliver of turf from the edge of the lawn, where it meets the edge of the perennial bed. Push the spade straight down into the soil its full length. Lightly pry out the turf by forcing the spade handle down toward the ground. Repeat the process along the edge of the bed. When a sliver of turf has been freed around the entire bed, shake the soil from its roots into the bed, and send the remains off to the compost pile.

Rake the soil from the turf’s edge, creating a 4- to 5-inch-deep trench. The lawn side of the trench should be sharply vertical, the perennial side should slope up slightly to meet the level of soil in the bed. This trench provides a barrier against turf-root growth, ensuring that grass won’t invade the perennial bed.

Once trimming the bed is complete, perennials will be ready for a dose of fertilizer, either in the form of compost or composted manure or synthetic fertilizer. Compost and manure can be worked into the soil around each plant to a depth of 1-2 inches. Synthetic granular fertilzer should be left on the soil’s surface, so as to not damage plant roots. A general recommendation for spring feeding of perennials is to provide 5 pounds of 10-10-10 fertilizer per 250 square feet of perennial bed.

Diana George Chapin is the NEWS garden columnist. Send horticulture questions to Gardening Questions, c/o Maine Weekend, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402-1329. Selected questions will be answered in future columns. Include name, address and telephone number.