It’s time to nestle cool season annuals in your garden bed

I have been to a couple of garden centers and have seen plants for sale and inventories increasing each week.

After a long Chicago winter, it is easy to let spring fever take over when ordering plants from catalogs and garden centers. Fulfill your design criteria by taking time to select plants that are suited to your garden’s growing conditions. The amount of sun and shade that your planting site has is an essential starting point for plant selection. Putting the right plant in the right location will result in a better-looking garden that requires less maintenance.

Plant cool-season annuals now — such as pansies and primulas that can tolerate a light frost — to add color to your garden. Garden staff has been busy planting 55,000 spring annuals throughout the display gardens.

These annuals can be used as underplantings for bulbs to complement their flowers and carry color over until summer annuals are planted in mid- to late May. Choose plants that are well developed, with lots of flowers and buds.

The cool-season annuals do not have much time to develop after planting. Ask your local garden center whether the plants have acclimated to being outside, as these cool-season annuals are more prone to cold damage if they have just come out of a greenhouse.

Support perennials

Install support for perennials that require staking in early spring as they begin to grow. It is best to install support systems before the plants actually need support and let them grow up through the support system.

Sharpen your tools

Use an electric hand grinder to sharpen your spades. Wear ear and eye protection while doing this work because it is noisy and sparks can fly off the spade as you sharpen it. Keeping spades sharp will make gardening much easier. New spades do not come with a sharp edge, so be sure to sharpen them before digging in.

• Tim Johnson is director of horticulture at Chicago Botanic Garden, chicagobotanic.org.