The Productive Landscape Journal: March 27, 2026
Unless you’re paying close attention, Spring has a funny way of sneaking up on you. One week everything is brown and drab, and the next the grass is green and flowers are blooming!
Early spring is a revealing time of year. The structure of the landscape is still fully exposed. The successes are easy to spot, but so are the gaps. This is one of the most important windows of the year – Not because everything is growing, but because everything is visible.
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This Week in the Landscape
This last week has been a wild ride on the weather side – We started last week at 14 degrees with a polar vortex outbreak, and then ended up breaking the high temperature record on March 22nd! Then, the temperature dropped 50 degrees, and it’s been chilly since then.
These wild temperature swings can make it difficult – I always get a little nervous when the weather is like this. The apple trees were at silver tip when the 14 degree night hit, so there shouldn’t be much damage, but they are progressing rapidly now – This is dangerous, because I know we’re not past the frosts and freezes yet. We’ll see what happens!
What We’re Working On
I started working on a planting bed around our patio. The soil is a heavy clay – Basically subsoil, dug up when they were doing the excavating. I grew annuals in this area last year, and they didn’t do very well – The soil is heavy and mucky, highly disturbed from construction traffic. This area needed some major tlc – I used a broadfork to loosen and lift the soil into large clumps. I then applied a mycorrhizal inoculant and a soil penetrant over the area to help restore the microbial activity.
I also got our pre-emergent down on our lawn – While I don’t like using too many chemical inputs, we did have an explosion of crabgrass last year with the hot and dry weather, and now we’ve got some dead zones in the lawn where the crabgrass has died. I usually look for a pre-emergent with dithiopyr(Dimension®) as the main ingredient – This is effective on a host of lawn weeds.
For an organic alternative, you can use Corn Gluten Meal, but this is a lot more expensive and tricky to get to work.
This time of year I try to restrain myself from doing too much – Instead, I observe and take notes, planning for when optimal planting time hits in April.
In Bloom Right Now
This week, we’ve got Chionodoxa and Daffodils in bloom, as well as a few snowdrops in shadier pockets. We’ve also got native Pussy Willow (Salix discolor) which is featured as our Native Plant of the Week below. None of the ephemerals are blooming yet, but Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica) look like they’ll be blooming next week.
The plantainleaf sedge (Carex plantaginea) had tried to bloom but were blasted by the deep freeze we had.
Native Plant of the Week: Pussy Willow (Salix discolor)
Ranging across Southern Canada and the Northern United States, pussy willow (salix discolor) is an early-season pollinator magnet. The tall shrubs to small trees are found on wet sites in the wild, though they will do well with average garden soil that doesn’t dry out in summer.
Pussy Willow is a classic Keystone Species – The puffy blooms are one of the earliest native plants to bloom, attracting all manner of native bees. I noticed a cloud of bees swarming around our pussy willow, and was fascinated by the number of different species upon closer inspection. Pussy willow also supports hundreds of species of caterpillars in our area – If you like songbirds in your garden, you definitely need some keystone species to provide them with the caterpillar protein they need to raise their young.
Pussy willow is also incredibly easy to grow, as well – Simply take a cutting right now and stick it into a pot, and it’ll root. I’m planning on replacing a non-native rosemary willow (Salix eleagnos) with some cuttings of pussy willow in a wet spot next to our driveway. Pussy willow can grow 15-20 feet tall, but it responds very well to cutting back every few years which keeps it more of a short shrub.
Do This Now
This is one of the most important weeks of the spring season. A little effort now pays off the rest of the year.
- Get ahead of cool season weeds
Remove or disturb cool season weeds now before they set seed. This is your easiest opportunity for control. I notice bitter cress and henbit coming up in our vegetable garden – A couple passes with a flame weeder takes them out nicely. - Edge and redefine planting beds
If you like a neat edge along your planting beds, now is a good time to do that. A spade edge dramatically sharpens the look of your landscape. I personally prefer a naturalistic feathered edge, though I do keep a sharp spaded edge around our herb garden and strawberry bed. - Direct sow hardy annuals (weather permitting)
Crops like peas, spinach, and early greens can be planted now if your soil is workable. I’ve got the challenge of gardening on a clay flat, so I’m holding off for now, but I have started a batch of Cascadia Sugar Snap Peas in pots to try to get a jump on the season.
Design Insight of the Week
A well-designed landscape starts with the structure.
Most people design landscapes based on how they look in peak season. A well-designed landscape should hold its own throughout the year, with trees and shrubs to anchor the landscape over the dormant months.
If your landscape only looks good when everything is full and flowering, analyzing the structure can take your landscape to the next level. Right now, before everything fills in, is the best time to evaluate whether your design actually works.
Recommended This Week
A few tools and materials that we’re finding useful right now:
Bully Broadfork
Sourced from: Amazon (Pictured above in “What We’re Working On”)
I got this broadfork as a Secret Santa gift in 2025, and already find it an indispensable tool! For decompacting and lifting soil, I have never used a more effective, ergonomic tool – By leveraging my body weight, I can work far more area than with my old garden fork.
What I like about the Bully brand broadfork is the design of its tines – These are thick steel plates instead of the thin circular tines you often see on broadforks, and they dig into our heavy clay with ease.
The Andersons Humic DG
Sourced from: Amazon
When I first purchased our house, it was a typical suburban yard. The topsoil was only about 3 inches thick on top of heavy clay, and the grass always browned out quickly in the summer because the roots didn’t go very deep.
The second year I was here, I made three applications of Humic DG – One in the spring, one in the fall, and another the following spring. I was blown away by the difference it made – The humates act by improving soil structure, helping the clay particles collect into aggregates and increasing microbial activity in the soil. Years later, our grass stays green well into the summer even with no irrigation.
A 40lb bag will cover an acre of land for under $100 – A worthwhile investment for years of return.
Gilbertson Bluebird House
Sourced from: Etsy
My brother bought me a couple of these years ago, and they have been a reliable nesting box every year. The design of the boxes makes them less attractive to house sparrows, which usually take over the standard wooden bluebird boxes, making it much more likely you’ll get a nesting pair of bluebirds.
These boxes from Etsy are made right here in Indiana by Amish craftsmen, with quality that will last for years.
Thinking about adding a bluebird house? Read our complete guide on getting bluebirds to nest.
Closing Note
Early spring is a critical time of year – the work you do now sets the tone for the whole season. Focus on getting stuff done, and focus on the actions that will result in the highest impact in your landscape.
See you next Friday!