Sunday marks the official arrival of spring in Ontario and if you’re eager to get going with gardening, you’re not alone.
“We’re seeing impatience with customers. They’re fed up with winter, they’re fed up with being locked up with two years and everyone is raring to go,” Ian McCallum, the manager of the Woodhill Garden Centre in Markham, told CityNews.
“It’s been absolutely non-stop. Our biggest problem is getting the supplies in. We vastly increased our sources to keep as much in stock as possible.”
Staff at the Steeles Avenue East business have been doing renovations on their greenhouse storage facility to make way for a surge of annual plants in anticipation of another strong year. The business reported a big jump in customers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
While it’s still too early to do most planting, there are things you can do if you want to jump-start garden preparations.
“If you’re looking for colour in the garden which everyone is, the first thing you can do is pansies,” McCallum said.
RELATED: In chaotic times, gardening becomes therapy
“Believe it or not, they can go out right now. They can stay in the garden. A lot of people will do a pot by the front door for colour granted we’re still going to get some nasty weather. All that will happen is that they will look wilted after a long, cold night.”
At the end of March or early April, he said bulbs can go in the ground too.
If you want to grow flowers from seed, McCallum said slower plants like petunias, impatiens and snapdragons should have been started already. But for quick-growing plants like marigolds, it’s weeks too early. He also said the end of March, fruit and vegetable seeds are prime to get going.
He encouraged people to use seeding containers with drainage holes and trays in a sunny and warmer area, covering each one with a lid until the second set of true leaves develop. After that happens, he said the temperature needs to be lowered wherever the seedlings are being kept.
McCallum said to use potting or seeding soil and not triple mix.
When it comes to most trees (avoiding ones with red or blue leaves), he said dormant spray should be applied to deal with insect- and fungus-related issues. This should be done on a day without frost or precipitation, minimal wind and when there are no freezing temperatures for 24 hours.
Shorter-term spring forecast for the Greater Toronto Area
So how is the forecast shaping up for the coming weeks?
“Southern Ontario as a whole will see a slightly above average spring in terms of temperatures,” Steven Flisfeder, a warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, told CityNews, adding there are still small discrepancies in the modelling.
“La Niña was in full force this winter, especially in the GTA with the snow amounts and very cold temperatures across the GTA, so as we move out of that La Nina we’re getting into a fairly standard spring pattern.”
Flisfeder encouraged people to hold off on planting anything frost-sensitive until May. The agency typically issues frost-related guidance for May at the end of April.
“Once we get into late March or early April we start to see a bit of a cooling trend, so temperatures might be below climatological normal for that time of year,” he added.
