Taking a chance: Experts advise when to start planting
BY CAITLYN KELLEHER

Pansies are strong flowers that should survive a frost and if covered by a tarp should survive a freeze. If one of the flowers is "burned" by the weather, the next flowers on the plant should be fine.

It's been a slow spring for those with a green thumb and a garden to plant, with colder than average temperatures and then the recent spring Nor'easter.

Local landscapers and nursery owners say that the recent weather and the forecasts shouldn't stop those who want to work in their gardens in the long run.

"Growers everywhere are just praying for some sun," said Lori Duffy, the manager of D&D Farms on State Road East in Westminster. "(The plants) will catch up once that happens."

Duffy's father, Richard Taranto, owns the nursery. The company's main headquarters is in Stow.

Many of the local gardeners are itching to get their hands in the dirt and to get their work started. But she warns of being too excited.

"Growers everywhere are just praying for some sun.

(The plants) will catch up

once that happens."

Lori Duffy takes down some of the hanging pansies which fill the greenhouse at D&D Farms.

- LORI DUFFY MANAGER OF D & D FARMS

The late April timeframe is a good time to plan perennials, cold crop vegetables - lettuce, cabbage, and some beans - as well as flowering violas and pansies.

Those flowers will survive a frost and should survive a freeze if covered with a trap, she said. It is too early to plant most other flowering plants unless people want to pull the flowers in to the house during frosts and freezes, she said.

"Today is a good day to plant," John Martin, of AJ&S Landscaping, said of the cool brisk weather. "It is actually one of the easiest days because the ground is soft."

He spent Thursday, April 19, working at three homes in Townsend doing basic spring clean up items. Martin keeps a few regular clients for whom he does the small jobs in the area - mostly Ashburnham and Townsend - then does a few bigger jobs with his company.

He added that the spring cleanup from the grass in the flower beds to the twigs and branches around the yard should be done now and then again after all of the storms. He added that putting down bark mulch will help protect the ground at this point.

D&D Farms stocks many items from flowers to herbs and manager Lori Duffy said she can get other plants easily from the family business' headquarters in Stow.

He warned residents not to wait too long, especially for larger items such as tree, bushes and shrubs, because the roots need to be established before the summer.

"The earlier the better," he said. "You just don't water them right now."

Martin said all of the area garden centers are already stocked with materials for the spring planting. He simply suggests digging a hole 1.5 times the size of the root bed, backing filling that hole, and then adding bark mulch on top. The area should remain wet after the plant has been planted, he said.

Some residents have found unexpected ponds in their front and backyards after the mid- April Nor'easter, both Martin and Duffy agree that there is nothing people can do about the area until the water absorbs.

"They just mend their soil as always," Duffy said. "There is nothing else they can do."

Although she added that if too much of the soil washed away from the area, it should be replaced.

Duffy said there are a lot of chances to take as a gardener in early- and mid-spring, but that it is better for the plants to go into the ground early so they are well-established before the heat of the summer.

"It's part of the thrill of being a gardener in New England," Duffy said.