What do you do when you're isolated at home on a beautiful day? Grow your backyard garden! The question comes up every Spring. Exactly when can you start planting? 25-year gardening expert and owner of Rail City Garden Center in Sparks Pawl Hollis says "When it warms up and things start blooming, people are out wanting to do their thing!"
And what grows well in the Truckee Meadows? Herbs, ferns, shrubs and trees. And Pawl says what a spring for flowers: "These Iris here can go in full sun. Roses go in full sun. We have a lot of them that bloom in partial shade."
While her husband went looking for pepper starters, Wanda Gillooly was shopping for small flowering plants, starting with the tiny ones: “Alyssum, geraniums and Nasturtiums." With the sunlight, warm temperatures and water, plants want to grow. Things are blooming everywhere out there. Pawl tells me, “A lot of people will see a blooming plant, steal a little snippet of it and come in and go, 'I want one of these.'"
For Pawl, Wanda and all other green thumbs in town, it's the best time of year for gardening. Especially with so many stuck at home now. Cabin fever is sending so many to their backyards. Pawl says, "People are paying more attention to their lawn. I've never had this many people reseeding their lawn. They've got some time.”
We sure do. And if you have the “wall of water”, you can start on tomato and pepper plants now. Pawl describes it as “A little greenhouse. During the day it's going to absorb the heat." With a plastic “wall” you fill with water, you can beat that old rule about not planting tomatoes until the snow's off Peavine Mountain. With it, you can jump ahead and do it now. Pawl says, “I've even had it get so cold that these will freeze like Otter Pops, and the tomatoes will survive, tomatoes and peppers."
For backyard growers, there's nothing left to do but enjoy what comes out of the ground. Pawl says, "Plants are hungry! They want water and food!"
The payoff is the perfect end of the day at Wanda's house: “We sit out there and have our glass of wine and look at our flowers and watch them grow. Life is good.”
