1. Head out to the garden centers to buy plants. Primex Nursery is selling roses for 20% off this weekend, beginning Friday, May 3. While there, pick up a bag of worm castings---not cheap, but manna for flowering plants. And buy Pro-Mix to enhance your soil. (Remember: always put a 50 cent plant in a $5 hole!)
Stores are now filled with annuals, perennials, and new shrubs. However, don't buy impatiens; they are doomed by disease. Better to use begonias. Red begonias go with everything!
Look for long-blooming perennials such as coreopsis, salvia, black-eyed Susans, and agastache.
I love fragrance in the garden. So, among other plants, I bought a pretty abelia shrub, 3 "tree" gardenias at $18 each from Produce Junction, and 8 smelly roses for a wonderful client. The gardenias favor an acidic soil . Also, I added a systemic insecticide to the soil when I repotted them. Bugs love gardenias.
Now, get growing~