Tips On Encouraging New Growth From An Expert Ridgefield Gardener

RIDGEFIELD, CT — Just as January is the month gardeners should focus on pruning trees and clearing away dead branches, February is time to hit up the deciduous shrubs, according to one Ridgefield gardening expert.

"Get rid of any dead or old branches and wood," said Lisa Chuma, a member of The Ridgefield Garden Club. "That will just encourage new growth and additional flowering, and they'll look better and feel better."

Prune away on those leaf-dropping trees, but hold off hammering the boxwoods and evergreens until March, Chuma warned.

Gardeners should also resist the urge to cut into their hydrangeas. These big-bloomed beasts established their buds in the fall.

"So you don't want to prune them now because you'll be cutting off all the blooms that where your flowers will come from this summer," Chuma said.

Although it's still too early to even think about planting summer vegetables, early to mid-February is prime time to get your onions, Irish potatoes, radishes, greens, lettuce, spinach, sugar snap peas, carrots, broccoli transplants, beets, Swiss chard and turnips into the ground, according to at agriculture scientists at Texas A&M.

But the second month of the year is the time to think about your approach to native plantings, Chuma said. These are the wild flowers found in meadows like McKeon Farm in Ridgefield, and they're crucial for the local ecology. Most gardeners don't plan on making room for milkweed, bee balm, coreopsis, goldenrod, and aster, but they should.

"It doesn't necessarily have to be a whole big meadow," Chuma said. "But even just having a few of those things in your garden will help support the butterflies and bees and birds."

The Ridgefield Garden Club will be hosting an in-person presentation with Bill Lucy from Save the Sound on March 28 from 1-2 p.m. He will be speaking about his efforts as Soundkeeper, the relationship between the inland waters that begin in Ridgefield and the Sound, and what can be done in Ridgefield to improve water quality in the rivers and, ultimately, the Sound.