Spring Planting At The Urban Garden

The weather has finally broken and started pushing us to get a move on at the urban garden. Warm temperatures and some rain will mean a good chance we will be mowing next week. Yesterday the irrigation contractor came out and charged the 6 systems we use and repaired all the broken lines and heads from the previous winters damage. Irrigation is a wonderful thing and essential in the planting islands in the parking lot. The down side is it is very expensive and time consuming to maintain in our parking lots. The heads in the planting islands are constantly being run over and broken by people jumping the curbs as they pull into the parking spaces.  I imagine between the three lots we average at least 4 broken heads a week. Not only is the head broken but a lot of the time the irrigation line below gets cracked and then needs to be repaired as well.

I will be doing the early spring color pot planting today with tulips, pansies and some english ivy. They will last for a couple of weeks until the weather is really safe for the summer annuals. Then the pots will be changed out for summer.

The beds in the main lot are all just about finished with the spring prep. They have been cleaned and all the perennials have received a haircut to remove last years die back. The beds will be fertilized next week and a pre- emergent herbicide put down to help with weed control. All and all it is in a controlled state of craziness that spring always brings.