To read these articles, usually penned in April for the glorious lusty month to come, you’d think nothing ever goes wrong. And perhaps for those who begin to garden in May with the aid of a smoking credit card, an SUV, and a minion or two, it doesn’t. But for those who started the party as early as February, the super-sized hangover is real.

Look around you. The daffodils that were glorious are now suffering what a friend calls "a big, dumb, dramatic, B-Grade, Silent movie death." The early apricots

have dropped their delicate, highly anticipated flowers and their true nature as non-descript trees of awkward stature is on display (in that too-prominent place that was so fabulous four weeks before). Even the ubiquitous forsythia has gone from herald of spring to "that-massive-needs-pruning-but-I’ll-do-it-next-year" blob at the top of the drive.

Where did the color go? Where did the time go? Why do I have a headache? The strength of spring is equaled only in its spectacular demise.

Are you ready for Part II?

The three aspects of a hangover (I am told) are thus: exhaustion, headache/annoyance, and protestations of better behavior in future; and applied to the garden, the analogy holds.

Exhaustion – It’s normal to experience a spring letdown. The run up to spring is quite literally that. From seed starting to pricking out, to cleaning up, pruning, digging, dividing, and planting again, it feels like all your time, spare or otherwise, is spent on a treadmill set just above a comfortable pace.

Headache/Annoyed – When you’ve looked forward to the growing season for so long, it’s especially annoying to realize that all the negative elements are back just as surely as the flowers. The return of the bunnies, the black flies in your eyeballs, the pruning fail, the perennials that didn’t come back, etc…

And so we come to the point of this article – the promises to do better. And we can.

Doing better, layer by layer

The goal of course, is to have something exciting going on at all times, whilst shoving the things that just went on under the sofa. That’s called succession planting and there’s a great deal more to it than putting in your pansies, replacing them with petunias and finishing up the edge-of-seat excitement with a display of chrysanthemums in September.

Start by getting nosy with your neighbors

Not everyone gardens, but the chances are that a long walk around your neighborhood will allow you to see one or two good options for mid-spring color and texture. Forget about your Insta or TikTok feed unless it is exceptionally local. You’re trying to figure out what can fill the gaps in your garden (and hide that daffodil foliage), by observing gardens that have just gone through the peculiarities of your winter and your spring.

Succession Planting

Succession planting is all about layers and it is very different from the majority mainstream American gardening model -- i.e. this plant here, that plant there, mulch heavily, repeat boringly.

Instead, try to create a symphony using the following layers:

• Anchor plants – these are your [hopefully interesting] permanent shrubs, small trees and grasses.
• Perennials – the plants that come back year after year (at least most of them), and tend to have 2-3 weeks of bloom. New breeding has pushed that time line in many perennials, but there is usually a strong initial flush, followed by the plant phoning in a flower or two to keep you guessing until September.
• Bulbs – there is more to bulb season than April daffodils. Look carefully at your options for early, mid, and late spring, and then head on over to catalogs for the summer blooming bulbs that are planted in spring.
• Temperennials – these are the plants hardy in some climates but not in yours. Not everyone has the patience to overwinter the tender, half-hardy annuals and tropicals that live in garages and greenhouses and come out to play again in the summer; but they add a huge amount to the late summer garden.
• Climbers – particularly for those with smaller gardens, the plants that go up, or like to scramble through, are a layer that should not be overlooked.
• Seeded Annuals – either you or your local nursery seed these indirectly or directly into the soil, though you’ll find you need to do most of the work if you don’t wish to bankrupt yourself. They will normally bloom at maturity until the last frost takes them. These are plants like larkspur, poppies, cornflower, lunaria, zinnia, cosmos and fennel.
• Volunteer seedlings – their children from previous seasons showing up in your soil, already sown, pricked out, and planted, and asking only one thing of the gardener – to be edited with a thumb and forefinger.

Succession, for success

For more information on the dance that is succession planting, join Leslie Harris and me on the April 24th The Spring Hangover Episode of The Garden Mixer Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts. We discuss some of the pitfalls of succession planting, and explain why gardeners that think in terms of layers recover quickly and are ready for the next party that May inevitably will bring.