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Years ago, I acquired a high-quality pair of long handled shears or loppers. As my projects change and I finally accept the fact that you can’t grow fruit on a generally wooded lot, they spend their time in the garage patiently waiting for a project that demands their services.

They got their first exercise of the year, last week, as I decided it was warm enough to cut back my butterfly bushes. I suggest waiting until you see new green appearing and then cutting them almost to the ground. You will get all the growth you need for good flowering by almost starting over each spring.

I found the one on the semi-shaded south side of my house quite happy but was surprised to find two of the three exposed to the northwest wind dead. They are easy to kill if you prune in the fall or winter but I guess winter or March winds can be a villain also.

The general rule for spring blooming shrubs is to prune immediately after flowering ends. The spring bloomers set buds during the summer of the previous year. Prune later and you simply are removing next year’s flowers.

Years ago, in this space I joked about seeing lots of bald headed forsythia due to pruning at the wrong time. It is my belief that if you demand a flowering shrub to grow as a manicured hedge or a perfect ball or cube you are compromising its flowering ability. Prune immediately after flowering and then stay away until next season.

Shrubs that flower in the fall bloom on new growth, so a spring pruning that encourages new growth gives best results. I would determine the hardiness of the shrub as I try to decide when to prune. To me, March is a demon. Erring on later does no harm.

I was in North Carolina last week for a few days and observed some nearby crape myrtle. For years they had been cut back to heavy wood. At the tip of each stem a large knot of stubs and leaf buds had developed. You could almost watch the new growth springing forth. Not sure I would try that here unless you have a very protected location.

Some shrubs are grown for foliage only. These I would prune in late spring with some thought to hardiness. One of my favorites, the twigged dogwoods offer the best winter color on new growth so I cut them to the ground each spring. Keeping last year’s new wood is another option.

Evergreens can be pruned almost at will, with best results after the flush of spring growth. Pines are the exception. With pines shorten only the new growth. Pines will not regenerate from last year’s wood. One secret to a successful evergreen hedge is to prune it wider at the bottom. That way you get light to the whole plant eliminating or reducing dead spots from too much shade.

When I had the orchard, we pruned apples and pears anytime in the winter. Hopefully that didn’t drag too far into March. Next came the grapes and blueberries followed by sour cherries and blue plums. The rest waited until new growth began in earnest. It wasn’t uncommon to prune past petal fall.

When more active, my shears worked from December to the end of July. You might experiment but I suspect that summer pruning suppresses a plant’s overall size but don’t violate the above suggestions.

I enjoyed George Deibel’s April 10th musings on finding an idea for a column. My columns and father’s before me were usually born out of questions from customers. With the weather the last month, many people are wondering what and when it is safe to plant. The other question we’ve been getting a lot recently regards vegetable gardening.

Many young people, even in Lancaster County, are growing up removed from farming. As young adults, and parents they are interested in joining the local food, or grow-your-own movements. Problem is, some don't know how. So here are my two cents.

Start small. It is very easy to get overwhelmed with a large plot of vegetables when they all come on at once in late summer or you don’t keep up with weeding and eventually can’t even see the tomatoes. I’m not making fun- both of these have happened to me. If this is your first garden- lettuces and spinach in a pot on the porch or patio makes a handy salad and can be cut over and over again. Once it gets too warm for lettuce, a determinate tomato or variety specifically for the patio can take its place. Unless you are planning to can tomatoes or make a lot of salsa you only really need a few plants. A short row of peas or beans will yield enough fresh to eat for many weeks’ suppers without having to freeze or can. If canning is your thing, go for it. But nothing beats fresh out of the garden.

Think about what you actually eat. If you don’t like broccoli- don’t plant it. It is doubtful you will enjoy it just because you grew it. Save that space for hot peppers, or something you do enjoy.

Plants or seeds? There are some things that are much easier to grow from seed. Radishes, carrots, beans, corn, peas are best directly sown in the garden. These either don’t yield much per plant, or do not transplant well so are best planted from seeds. Peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant are better started from transplants. They have a longer growing season, so a jump start in a warm greenhouse will get you far. Then there is a third category that can go either way. Cucumbers, melons, and squash can be seeded directly in the garden or started from small plants. Leave enough space for the plants to grow.

When? I found myself in the odd position of stopping people from buying tomatoes the first week of April. In late March, peas and onions can go in the ground. Early April is for lettuces and spinach, kale and radishes. Transplants of broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower go in then too up until late April-early May. Wait on tomatoes until nights are reliably above 45. Beans and potatoes are good then as well. Peppers and eggplant like it even warmer- After Mother’s Day is safest. Same for cucumbers, melons and squash. Plant in mid-late June for fall pumpkins. An early June planting of tomatoes will extend your fall tomato harvest. Stagger your plantings a bit. If you are starting from seed- a hill of cucumbers every two weeks will keep you in salads a lot longer than four plantings at once. You only need one zucchini plant or lots of neighbors to give them too. Read the seed packets; they usually have an approximation of how long the season to harvest is.

Don’t forget about the fall garden. The spring growing season can sometimes be shortened on peas, beans and broccoli as the temperatures heat up quickly. Planting peas, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and cabbage in early August, will yield a nice fall harvest. Lettuce, spinach planted in September can be cut long after the kids are back at school.

If you have children get them involved. My kids love to plant and eat peas right out of the garden. Cherry tomatoes are sweet and make a healthy snack.

I wonder what next week’s questions will be.

Last week’s nightly low temperatures fluctuated by 30 degrees. It felt like winter on Monday and almost summer by Saturday. What is a gardener to do?

Plants like shrubs, trees, hardened off perennials and cool-season annuals and vegetables can safely go in the ground now. Wait a bit for tender annuals and the bulk of the vegetable garden like tomatoes and peppers, melons and cucumbers.

Hardening off is something that is really beneficial to your plants. In most greenhouses, plants are heated to anywhere from 45-60 degrees at night. It is not that warm outside at night generally in the middle of April. Also, greenhouses are more humid and less windy than your gardens. Cold, dry, windy air is a triple whammy for many tender plants. Properly hardening off your seedlings will take a few extra steps but your plants will thank you for it.

Last week a customer shared her method with me. I had to admit it was pretty genius. She puts her small plants on a tarp and drags it from her garage to the driveway. Starting with a few hours and working her way up to a full day for a week prepares them for planting. A small wagon or just carrying flats outside to soak up the sun works too. If you have a cold frame or small cloche great. Even hardening off during the day it is still too early for many annuals to go in the ground. Especially this year, hold off on impatiens, lantana, Angelonia, pentas, and other warm season annuals.

So you got excited and put plants in the ground and the weatherman is calling for a frost. What do you do? Hardened off cool season veggies like kale, broccoli, artichokes and leeks are generally ok. Cauliflower and lettuces seems to be the most sensitive of this group. The outer leaves sometimes get a bit white around the edges, but it shouldn’t hurt much. If you just planted, covering them is a good idea. Ready made row covers or an old sheet suspended over the plants prevents frost from forming on the leaves. Overturned buckets or milk jugs with the bottom cut out also work like mini-greenhouses if you have enough buckets.

Even with hardening off, tomatoes, eggplants and peppers still won’t enjoy temperatures below 45-55. Save these for planting when nights are reliably in the 50s. I use my weather app even more than Facebook.

There are many perennials and shrubs you can plant if your fingers are itching to get dirty. Also get a start on weed control. Bittercress, and wild garlic don’t seem to mind the frost unfortunately.

Recently I tagged along with my wife to one of her volunteer activities and soon found myself on the periphery of a conversation with anther volunteer. It didn’t take long for hints of horticulture to appear. The other person appears to own acreage well beyond the typical rural lot. Two years ago he had logged an area and now his wife thought the area looked naked. What should he plant to fix that?

Reading between the lines, he did not have to say ‘quickly’. The final tidbit offered was that the deer liked the area. Well, maybe not the deer, but multiple hunters did. That suggested the area had already begun to regenerate and that lots of woody plants were already at least head high or higher.

Now I took a turn and suggested that really there was nothing practical to do but wait. The basic rule of planting trees is that they need a year of tender loving care for each inch of trunk diameter.Almost certainly the site was already covered with a lot of one-inch trees. Since they are already acclimated and growing rapidly, they will be two inches in a year or two. Plant something larger than what is there and I’m certain the existing trees will soon catch up and surpass. Planting a large tree or two in a yard could make sense but on a mass scale, never.

The more interesting point was the mention of the deer. I’d bet that if the area was examined during the various seasons of the year you would find a multitude of critters now living there that were absent before it was logged. As an example, I suggest visiting the county’s Ted Parker Park on the border of Colerain and East Drumore Townships. The park’s namesake was a world-renowned ornithologist who was born in Lancaster. He died in a plane crash in Ecuador while studying tropical birds. The problem in that park is that birding is hit or miss. Once in a great while you see a lot, but usually it offers a limited number of species. The habitat, in addition to the stream, is covered with very large, mature poplar trees. The understory, except on the streambanks, is sparse and the mid-story is nonexistent. If it is not logged soon, mother nature will take over and old trees die and fall with little impact on the habitat.

Interestingly, the state game commission in the last decade or two is paying a lot of attention to rejuvenating significant forest areas. It started as a project to provide desirable habitat for game animals but it was soon realized that it was a boon for all wild creatures. They now talk about a 50-year plan to rejuvenate all their land. That brings me back to my own yard. When I moved here over five years ago, I loved my large oaks. The first one to blow over got the front walk and rainspout but spared the house. Four more scary ones have been removed and another one fell in the early March wind. My problem, and one many of you with large trees share is, “now what”?

What is your Hardiness Zone? What does it mean, and how does it affect your garden choices?

The US Department of Agriculture drew up the Hardiness Zone map as a standard for farmers and gardeners to better understand their growing conditions. It is based on average winter minimum temperature and broken down into 10F degree segments. Fairly recently, this was further parsed into 5F differences using the letters “a” and “b”. Here in Lancaster County we are Zone 6b, meaning our average coldest night is -5F.

When you look at a plant tag or catalogue it often gives the Hardiness Zone as a range. For example, Black-eyed Susans are hardy from Zone 3-9. This means they can live in an area with winter temperatures as low as -35F to areas with lows down to 25F. Geographically this corresponds to the range from Minnesota to Georgia.

There are some drawbacks to this system. It does not take into account summer heat and humidity. Some plants that can handle the winters, may melt out in the summers. It also does not regard snow cover. With a layer of insulating snow- plants can tolerate much lower winter temperatures than without that protection.

To address the first problem, a corresponding Heat Zone system was devised by the American Horticulture Society. It is based on the average number of days above 86F. Why 86F? This is the temperature when most plants stop actively growing and suffer from heat “distress”. Prolonged exposure to temperatures above 86F can cause problems setting fruit, bud drop, leaf yellowing etc. Zone 1 corresponds to 1 day above 86F. Alaska and parts of the Rocky Mountains are in Zone 1. Zone 12 includes area with more than 210 days above 86F. South Florida, South Texas, and the Arizona desert are about the only spots of Zone 12 in the US. Lancaster County is on the border of Heat Zone 5-6. Meaning we have between 30-60 days above 86F. Otherwise known as July. This system gives a more complete answer for understanding if a plant will do well in your garden, but is not yet widely used.

Microclimate also is an issue. If you live downtown, the heat sink of the buildings and paved roads affords several degrees. Likewise, right up against your house is more protected and a bit warmer than in an exposed area of your yard. My neighbor has a stunning camellia bush that I so envy. Most camellias are zone 7 or even 8. If you remember above, Kirkwood is zone 6b. Ann’s camellia is surrounded on three sides by evergreens to block the wind and faces south. It is beautiful every year and I try to drive past as often as possible when it is in bloom.

Cold hardiness and bud hardiness are also two different stories. This refers more to trees and shrubs than perennials. A plant may be cold hardy in its root system, but buds set the previous summer may suffer from low temperatures. For those of you whose hydrangeas don’t bloom- this is why.

The gardening season is almost upon us. As you chose plants this year, think about the cold Hardiness Zone and Heat Zone maps and how they can help you make more informed choices.