Gardens at Coppertop

Our snow has completely melted, and we’re in the midst of some unseasonably mild temperatures.The hellebore parade is underway!

It felt great this week to begin planting for 2024. There’s nothing like getting my hands into soil to rev my gardening engine!

Ranunculi are the first big project. This year I’m starting a couple hundred pink, orange, yellow, and white plants in the garden shed. I have plans to boost a couple garden areas that already contain ranunculi and to edge some of our raised beds in the perennial garden with them.

The tiny corms resemble octopuses/octopi or mini dahlia tuber clumps, each clump just 1-2 inches wide. They require soaking for 24 hours before planting. I plant them closely in shallow trays of slightly damp soil. After distributing the corms, I cover them with a 1/2 inch of soil, cover them with humidity domes (mainly for protection from hungry mice who frequent the shed), and place them on heat mats because the garden shed is currently unheated. The heat isn’t really required but may boost initial success.

Ranunculi prefer cool weather, so giving them a head start is the best idea in order to encourage roots to form and foliage to begin showing before planting them out in the garden in late winter or early spring. These should begin blooming in April or May and provide sweet color, both outdoors and indoors in bouquets, for months.