- Mild winter has gardeners itching to get started.
- Local experts offer do's and don'ts.
- Video shows local garden shops and gardening experts.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story)
This year's mild winter has gardeners itching to get started. But how soon is too soon? I talk to some Jackson-area gardening experts at local flower and garden centers.
"At this time of the year, I mean, we're a little bare right now," J. Alexander's Florist and Garden Center owner Hope Weishaupt said.
Indeed, local garden centers I visited are all still waiting — and advising gardeners to do the same.
"I know people are a little bit antsy, but the problem being — little too early," Weishaupt said.
Hope Weishaupt says if you want to plant, the time is right for flowering trees and shrubs. The rest you should save for later.
"Trees are just fine," Weishaupt said. "The ground never totally froze this year, and they won't go through a shock because they're in the same temperature here that it's going to be at your house."
"I try to hold people off," Beck's Flowers and Garden owner Gary Beck said. "I'm trying not to be like the box stores. I try to give good advice — to teach people so that they plant once."
Beck, who's been in the business for more than six decades, says despite a mild winter and warm days, it's still too early for anything except onions, garlic, and potatoes.
And plants that are sprouting early due to the warmth need protection from the occasional temperature dips.
"If you're going out there and see flowers starting, you need to get a pile of leaves or marsh hay or straw, and have it on hand so…and keep track of the weather, and, if it's going to be 25, you need to cover your strawberries, you need to cover your asparagus," Beck said.
So the old maxim — wait 'til Mother's Day — still applies.
