Getting your garden ready for summer: Some expert tips

TORONTO, Ont. – Gardeners unite! Your time has come.

While the calendar has shown spring for the past five weeks, the weather hasn’t been anything like it – until this weekend.

With temperatures forecast in the upper teens – the warmest temperatures in 2013 yet – accompanied by plenty of sunshine, gardeners will be getting their green thumbs ready.

“I’m going to do some planting outside here. I’m going to put down some topsoil,” one man told 680News, out for a stroll near Yonge and Bloor.

“I do a little bit of a vegetable garden, some flowers,” said another man.

However, an expert says, certain species should not be planted, just yet.

“Anything that deals with frost or cold soil temperatures – and what I mean by that is anything that could suffer from severe frost, so we have things like tomatoes, pepper plants,” City’s Frankie Flowers tells 680News.

Good vegetable crops to begin growing at this time of year include carrots, radishes or spinach. As for flowers, Frankie recommends pansies for some colour inspiration, and hanging plants which can be brought indoors on chilly nights.

It’s also a good time of year to put down grass seed.

But before planting, a clean-up is a must.

“Any broken branches, you take care of any of that. Any debris sitting around the garden – get rid of it. Any annuals from last year that have died,” Frankie says, but be careful.

“Some plants that bloom in spring – like a lilac -if you prune them right now, goodbye to your blooms. They’re gone.”

And don’t forget to fix the dirt.

“Remember your garden’s only as good as the soil it grows in.”

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