Spring is near: Avoid gardening mistakes with these tips

GAYLORD — The snow is receding and bringing in temperatures that resemble something a little closer to gardening season, so the Herald Times opted to gather some gardening tips from a master gardener who lives and plants in the area.

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Paul Beachnau, a master gardener from Gaylord said, one rookie mistake he sees beginner gardeners do is not paying attention to how much sun a plant requires.

“It’s really important to really pay attention to how much sun and shade you get because not all plants are created equal,” he said.

Beachnau’s home is a mostly shady area and he said he tends to plant more perennials and and ground cover plants that prefer shade.

“I love hostas and I love snow on the mountain and I love creeping Myrtle, and the Myrtle and the hostas will actually flower a little bit,” Beachnau said. “But the snow on the mountain is a really nice green ground cover that I like mixing in that brightens up some areas, and it loves shade and moisture.”

He said since hostas come in a range of varieties, one way to spiff up the look is to get a blend of types such as light-colored and dark hostas mixed together in one area.

“For me, those are a great way to fill a lot of areas if you have a lot of shade but there’s so many varieties of hosts. I just love them,” he said.

Another trick to brightening up an area is to add some annual flowers to the shady perennials, Beachnau added.

He said the hostas and other shady plants make a great backdrop for little pops of color that bloom all summer from some perennials.

“One of my little secrets that I like to do is if you want a bit of color and you do want to go with some annuals, I’ll throw in some impatiens,” Beachnau said. “I’ll put carefully placed clumps of impatiens, because impatiens will spread out. You don’t need to take a whole flat of impatiens and fill an area.”

Soil

While Otsego County has a variety of soil types, there is a prevalence in some places for sandy, acidic soil and this works great for some plants, but poorly for others.

“Soil types are really important. If your soil is kind of sandy and it’s got a little clay and not so much humus, hostas aren’t going to like that. Or if you get a lot of southern types of plants and they like a little more acidic soil,” he said.

Beachnau advised gardeners to carefully read plant labels when purchasing and planting and match up conditions that the plants require.

“You might like it, it might be your favorite and it might be really pretty but you've gotta put it in the right spot,” he said. “And I say that because I’ve learned the hard way.”

Blueberry bushes are a good choice for those sandy, acidic spots since they like more sun, near pine trees and arid, loose soil.

Another option for plants like blueberries is to put pine needles near the base of the plant and give them a supplement to help alter the soil type.

Beachnau said just because the soil in the area is one type, doesn’t exclude one from growing certain plants of a different soil type since people can buy supplements to change the soil for plants.