For as long as she can remember, Linda Dronseika has found puttering around in the garden to be extremely therapeutic. And with spring finally here, avid and first-time gardeners can start planning for their favourite summer blooms.   

“Not outside, don’t start planting outside yet,” says Dronseika, who has been a member of both the Muskoka-Parry Sound Master Gardeners for 13 years as well as a member of the Huntsville Horticultural Society for 20 years. “As soon as the snow goes, I like to get out and rake up the leaves left in the flower beds and start getting the sand off the boulevards. The best way to do that is with a push broom.”

While the ground may not have been free of snow for long, there is still much to be done to prime up for the flower-planting season.

Dronseika, herself, is always ahead of the game. In January, she started growing petunias indoors, at the beginning of March she planted impatience seeds, and just recently she planted marigolds. Over the next month, she will tend to her seedlings until they are ready to be transplanted outdoors.

“If you’ve got plants growing inside, you have to harden them off before planting them outside,” she said, adding that this involves placing them in shade first. “If it’s going to frost, just cover them up, but if snow and heavy frost is in the forecast, don’t put them outside. Treat plants that have been inside all winter like you would yourself and slowly bring them out into full sun. Plants can burn, too.”

For those who bought mini roses over Easter, Dronkseika has some good advice: When they’re done blooming, cut them back, harden them off in the spring and plant them in the garden. If you’re buying bulbs, like hyacinths or daffodils, let the flowers die and then plant them in the fall.

“Perennials can go in as soon as the ground can be worked,” said Dronseika, adding that she buys plants that grow in shade due to the location of her property. “If I haven’t got it and I see it, I usually have to buy it. Here, I find mini roses do better than hybrids. They usually freeze off in the winter. Mini roses, if you cut them back, come back in the spring.”

Dronseika also reveals an important tip when it comes to choosing what flowers to grow in the garden.

“On occasion, nurseries bring in plants that aren’t zone-hardy,” she said. “We’re (Muskoka) a zone 4B, so if you’re buying a perennial make sure it’s 4B or lower. If it’s 5 or 6, they won’t survive here. Shasta daisies, iris and hostas are some of the ones that will grow almost anywhere.”

Other useful tips that have made Dronseika’s gardens flourish in the past are using a good fertilizer, deadheading blooms and sprinkling bone meal around the new plants in the spring, which strengthens the bulbs for next year.

Whether one is fertilizing with bags of manure or with compost, Dronseika recommends starting perennials off with compost and manure and adding to it every year.

“With perennials, starting them off in good soil is the only way to get them well-established,” she said. “I grow a lot of things under trees and I use liquid fertilizer a couple times a year because the plants absorb it through their leaves and because the trees take all the nourishment out of the soil. I use a lot of my own compost for my plants. I also deadhead once a week and that just means pulling the dead blossoms off. If they go to seed, they quit blooming.”

Last year, Dronseika was the recipient of the Jan Glenn Memorial Award for her outstanding and significant contributions to the recreational community. Every year, she rounds up volunteers to help beautify the town, tends to the downtown flower gardens and prepares hanging baskets. Last year, she made 50 hanging baskets for the Huntsville Train Society, planted 1,500 petunias downtown as well as 350 fillers, including ivy, sweet potato vine and asparagus fern. She also potted 150 pots of canna lilies to be placed in the flower barrels downtown. At the end of the growing season, Dronseika harvests seeds from many of the plants that she has grown, a cost-effective and recycling approach to gardening.

“It’s a passion and a hobby,” said Dronseika, noting that she spent many summers as a young girl helping out in the garden. “I find it therapeutic because I’m not thinking about anything else but what I’m doing.”

Anyone wishing for some helpful gardening advice can call Linda Dronseika at 789-3430.