9 Easy Steps to Prepare Your Spring Garden

By Pro.com
Special to Yahoo Homes

To produce a blooming garden, timing is everything. Plot out which bulbs you’ll use and to avoid soil compaction, you’ll need to wait until the soil isn’t so we that it balls up in your hands. For proper garden preparation and to ensure a glorious bounty of blooms, get your garden ready this spring by following these easy nine steps.

 
 

1. Tools

Before you can even begin, you need to have the right tools and supplies in your arsenal. Order your seeds, save containers for seedling and scrub down your tools. Tip: storing tools in a bucket of sand will help prevent rust from forming.

If you’re new to gardening, you’ll need the following tools and supplies:

- Small and large clippers to trim and prune branches and plants

- Gardening gloves for protection for your hands

- Shovel to dig holes for plants, and also for transporting soil and fertilizer

- Narrow and wide hand trowels for digging small holes and to loosen and spread around soil

- Hand and large rake to clear garden of debris and to loosen soil

- Knee pads to comfortably garden while kneeling down

- Garden broom to clean out a budding garden

- Compostable garden bags to easily dispose of compost

2. Rake

If the soil feels ready in that it no longer balls up in your hands, clear debris and dead plants by raking your lawn and garden, then add to compost.

3. Prune

To keep perennials on their seasonal cycle, prune and prep them as soon as you see new growth. Trim any dead stems to bring plants out of a dormant stage.

4. Weed

While the topsoil is still damp, this is the time to start pulling weeds and this will stop them from seeding other areas of your lawn. Be sure you do not add weeds to your compost that you will be using to avoid re-feeding weeds back into your garden.

5. Test

When you see new growth on old plants is the best time to test your soil.Test the balance of your soil before introducing new plants into your garden, and determine what kind of fertilizer and pesticide you might need. Testing your soil will determine if you need a certain nutrient-rich fertilizer, compost or top dressing.

6. Transplant

Plants typically tolerate stress and recover faster in the early growth cycle. For any plants you are transporting or turning into seedling, divide and transplant them first.

7. Stake

Staking plants once they first start to grow is much easier to work with than when they become more mature. It may not look aesthetically pleasing, but prepping the stakes early on will save you time and energy wrestling with them later.

8. Mulch

Mulch is much like a multivitamin for gardens. Once the soil is warm and a bit dry, this is when you want to add the mulch. Adding mulch is optional, however, your blossoms will have more vitality because of it because it helps to cool plants at the roots, feeds and soils the plant, and mulch even helps conserve water.

9. Edging

To ensure a more polished garden, trim and edge your garden, especially on borders and between flower beds. This finishing touch will elevate the look of your garden.

 
 

Pro.com is a website founded in 2013 by service industry entrepreneurs and former Amazon executives to simplify home services -- especially research on contractor fees and qualifications.

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