Geraniums, photo courtesy of ISU Extension and Outreach.

While it’s now officially spring, it’s probably too soon to rush out to plant in your flower bed or garden.

Washington County Master Gardener Sheila Gerot says the frost season doesn’t typically end until May, but in the meantime gardeners can start germinating plant seeds inside. Gerot advises people to read the seed packet carefully so as to not start germinating too early and for plants to end up “too leggy” before planting outside. While the ground may be too saturated to do a lot of work right now, Gerot does recommend surveying your garden or flower bed, “We had a lot of deep snow, the rabbits are really hungry. You’re going to find that you probably got damage to your plants, to your bushes. Rabbits in particular, I’ve noticed that my burning bush is completely chewed down, it’s about three or four inches tall. It’s an established plant, it’ll be fine. I’ll just shape it a little bit, if the rabbits eat more on one side than another well you just go out and prune off and make it shape nice, it’ll come back.”

Gerot has been a master gardener since 2006, and she says the Washington County group is looking forward to doing maintenance of their gardens at the county fairgrounds, going on garden tours this summer, as well as hosting their annual plant sale on May 15th, which was cancelled last year because of COVID-19. For more information on how to be a master gardener visit here.