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Harlequins Gardens

Harlequins Gardens

Boulder's specialist in well-adapted plants

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Home | Blog | Getting Your Soil Ready for Spring

Getting Your Soil Ready for Spring

March 11, 2025

Sunny days in March offer the perfect opportunities to prepare your soil for planting. What do our soils need that they don’t already have? – oxygen-air and biology-carbon. Increasing the air and carbon in our soils support soil life which in turn supports plant life. Our tight clay soils that tend to exclude oxygen and are deficient in organic matter can use some help.

If you are starting a new planting bed or reviving a neglected one, adding compost is key to your plants’ success.

Our basic recipe is to spread 2” of local compost on the surface and dig or fork it into the top 6”-8”. We especially like to use a garden fork, which creates holes that allow the compost to fall down into the root zone, leaving more of the soil’s microbial and fungal networks intact. This will add air, carbon and soil organisms, while also sequestering carbon and reducing release of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If you’re planting individual trees and shrubs, dig each hole 2-3 times the diameter of the pot and the same depth. Mix 30% compost with the existing soil (20% is okay for native shrubs) – 50% is way too much. By the way, clay is not ‘crap’; it contains lots of minerals and it holds water; it just needs some help.

If your soil is very dense clay, hard for water and trowels to penetrate, you can add 1”-2” of expanded shale on the surface and dig it in with your 2” of compost, or 10%-20% in with the compost for a shrub or tree. Expanded shale is a local product, shale fired to 900 degrees, creating microscopic porosity that holds both air and water, and provides excellent breeding grounds for beneficial microbes. It helps build soil structure (porosity and tilth) and, unlike compost, it is permanent and won’t need renewal. Expanded shale is valuable for roses and fruit trees that don’t like “wet feet”, and it can prevent fungal problems.

It’s OK to add some organic fertilizer, but use half the recommended amount. You can always add more later and it’s better to let the biology digest the nutrients.

Water deeply and seldom (once a week is good, increasing to twice a week in July). Too much water drives out the oxygen. Plant roots need air and healthy soil life needs air.

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Categories: Blog, Mikl's Articles, Articles: Soils

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We do not ship plants!

Our plants are for sale ONLY at our Boulder location. We DO NOT ship plants or any other products.  Come visit us!

Hours by Season

SUMMER HOURS
Tuesday-Sunday, 9AM-5PM

 

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Contact Us

303-939-9403 (Retail)
staff@harlequinsgardens.com

4795 North 26th St
Boulder, CO 80301

Sign-up for E-Newsletters!

Sign-up for our weekly e-newsletters to receive empowering gardening tips, ecological insights, and to keep up on happenings at Harlequin’s Gardens — such as flash sales and “just in” plants. We never share customer’s addresses!

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Our Hours

Seasonally, MARCH to OCTOBER.
MARCH HOURS:
Thursday-Sunday, 9AM-5PM

APRIL-OCTOBER HOURS:
Tuesday-Sunday, 9AM-5PM

JANUARY - FEBRUARY HOURS
Thursday-Saturday, 10AM-4PM

Mondays, CLOSED

The plants we grow are organically grown. All the plants we sell are free of bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides.