We are excited to welcome Anna Varnava of Harvest Market and Garden Centre to the Seeker Team.

Hello everyone! My name is Anna and I manage your local Harvest Garden Centre on the corner of Vincent Massey and Powerdam Road in Cornwall.

In this column, I’m going to be answering your everyday gardening questions.

To kick things off we’re going to talk about how to properly prepare your established flower beds for the spring. Now that the warm weather is here, its the perfect time to start raking the beds of any debris. While raking be sure that you’re being careful not to rake up any of your fall bulbs.

If you see any small weeds starting, be sure to remove them right away as they can become an issue down the road. Once everything is all cleared its a good idea to add some soil and compost for those much-needed nutrients. If you don’t have access to compost, a great substitute is bone meal as it will provide a solid boost.

Now we’re going to trim and cut back all of our perennials, small trees, and shrubs. Perennials, for example, hostas will have a lot of dry leaves and twigs from last years growth so be sure to remove all of that. The new shoots are at the crown of the plant (See photo left) and it is very important not to damage them as they will be this year’s growth.

Now time to get your favourite pruners out! For the small trees and shrubs, I like to cut them back two-thirds of last years growth to make the plant look tighter and give it more shape. Once you start seeing leaves emerge, I trim out any dead branches that I may have missed.

Now that everything is ready its time for the fun part! Figure out where you want to add plants and keep in mind how much space you have, the type of lighting and the type of soil.

I hope this has helped you get your flower bed prepped and ready to go for the spring!

If you would like me to answer one of your questions next month you can send your question to me at: info@theseeker.ca attention Ask Anna. I hope you all have a great month and be sure to stop by and say hi and send me your asks…