What to do this week This is the month to start a new lawn or patch an existing one. Deadhead flowers and remove brown foliage to keep the garden neat. Plant spinach, arugula, mache, radish, bearded iris, peonies, and Oriental poppies. Order spring-blooming bulbs.
Q. Son number three is getting married in Boston on May 13. Our out-of-town visitors will be taking over a guesthouse on the harbor. I thought I might grow enough spring flowers to create at least eight small arrangements — one for each room. I am thinking of devoting one of the raised beds in my garden to tulips. If you wanted mid-May tulips, what would you grow?
CARLA KINDT, Milton
A. May 13 is during tulip time, so order bulbs now, plant this fall, and cut next spring. I would use just tulips, because their stems continue to grow and swoop after cutting, making them difficult to combine with other flowers.
Mail order gives you a vast selection, so go online or use catalogs from leading tulip houses and spend an evening luxuriating in all the colorful possibilities. I would treat myself to some of the more outrageous ones that are better for cutting than garden display, such as parrot tulips, whose striped, fringed, and twisted petals look like feathers taking flight. Fringed and viridiflora tulips, which are streaked with beguiling shades of green, are less flamboyant but still eye-catching. Lily-flowering tulips have elegant pointed petals like, well, lilies. I would stick to one type of tulip in several colors per bouquet, but feel free to go wild. Since these baroque Dutch masterpieces are all late-blooming tulips, I would ensure against hot spring weather by planting some earlier bloomers such as triumph and double early tulips. My favorite sources are www.brentandbeckysbulbs.com and www.johnscheepers.com. For petite arrangements, order the charming Aladdin’s Carpet mix sold by www.color-blends.com, which combines six kinds of little wild tulips with three kinds of muscari and a dwarf daffodil for a long-running display that you can cut almost any week. Flowers in this mix can be combined in nosegays because of their short stature and delicacy, and unlike the other tulips I’ve mentioned, they are somewhat perennial.
Do spray your tulips with deer repellent if you live in critter country; the buds are their favorite appetizer. If they do crop your tulip crop, go to Plan B and clip lilac bushes. They should be blooming at this time. No lilacs? Check your other flowering trees and shrubs.
Q. After much trial and error, I have found a perfect solution to protecting highbush blueberry from hungry birds. I purchased white patio-umbrella netting a few years ago that even has zipper access. We cover the bushes and secure the bottom with a bungee cord around the “trunk’’ of the bush.
Sadly, this year we had no blueberries, but I am using the net to cover my tomato plants, which are attracting squirrels that devour the fruit as soon as it turns red.
But why don’t blueberry bushes produce fruit every year?
GAIL P. FINE, Peabody
A. Thanks for the tip. I think our blueberry bushes are not producing this year because of the drought. That’s also why chipmunks and squirrels are eating ALL of my tomatoes. They’re thirsty, so they are drinking tomato juice.
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