Garden Diary No. 2 | April

A month of growth, uncertainty, and learning to let go

Apr 30, 2026

Francisca’s lip curved up for the first time all week as a carpenter bee flew by her head, its buzz settling into her like a quiet hum. She quickly reached for her phone to record it, wanting to remember this moment. To her, the first sight of bees meant spring was here. The bee allowed a few seconds of paparazzi and then vanished into its new home, the wooden post in the garden. Most people would try to stop bees from burrowing into the wood, but not Francisca. She welcomed them with open arms, excited to provide a buffet of pollen for them and their babies this gardening season. She spent the rest of the day in the garden, untethered from the rest of the world. It was just her, her garden, and her two favorite people. In her eyes, that was the best kind of day.

It has been a very wet and stormy April, both literally and in life. I have struggled to get to the computer to write or even grab a book to read. I’m finding it hard to maintain my healthy routines, and old habits are creeping back in. But one thing that can always ground me and bring me back to the present is my garden. There is something so beautiful about being outside and working with your hands. It’s like the soil drains my anxiety and I’m able to breathe again. Not a shallow breath, but a deep belly one. Let’s not forget about the bees. Seeing them buzz around is one of my favorite things about the gardening season. To put it simply, they fill me with pure joy.

April tends to be the most overwhelming month of the gardening season for me. It’s when tasks start to pile on top of each other and everything feels like a priority. It’s also the time the last frost happens here in the Midwest and all the heat-loving plants can finally go outside. But it’s not that simple. The weather is very unpredictable in the spring, where temperatures can swing from very hot to a frost all in one day. I probably check the forecast several times a day. It’s like a new hobby of mine.

When trying to figure out when to start hardening off plants and moving them into the garden, I have to take into consideration a full week of the forecast. Sometimes I get stuck in analysis paralysis, so I just have to force myself to make a decision. I can either keep them inside and risk them getting root-bound and weak, or I can plant them outside and hope a fluke frost doesn’t happen. It is a risk either way. But in gardening, it is all a risk, as we can’t control nature. There is beauty in that. Learning to let go of control and still try something new, especially when you don’t know the outcome.

I have killed many plants as a gardener, but that has not stopped me from being excited to do it all again the next year. Because I know that some plants will survive and produce the most beautiful blooms. That, my friend, is hope in a nutshell. Knowing things may not work out as you plan, but trying anyway because the possibility of beauty is worth the risk.

Gardening Tip #1: Harden off your plants for at least a week before planting them outside. Start with one hour and gradually increase their time outside until they can withstand being out for an entire day. This is so important, as when you start seedlings indoors, they are used to calm and controlled environments. If you plant them out without hardening them off, they can go into shock and either die or become stunted.

What happened in my garden this past month? A LOT.

First, we cleaned up all the garden beds and amended the soil. I usually mix in some compost with cow manure and worm castings. I did this last year, and I noticed a huge difference in the plants and their blooms. One lesson I’ve learned over the years is that the health of the soil is one of the most important things for a garden. There is so much growth that happens underneath the ground before it becomes visible, which is just a great reminder for anything you pursue in life. When you start something new and consistently show up, a lot of your growth will not be visible. And I think that sometimes we can get very impatient or discouraged when there aren’t tangible or visible results. I’m guilty of this all the time. But if we just keep at it, we will eventually see those results.

Gardening Tip #2: Always amend your soil before planting. It’s important to replenish nutrients back into the soil.

Once the raised beds and containers were cleaned up and amended, it was time to slowly evict my seedlings from the house. At the beginning of the month, I planted all my cold-hardy plants into the garden. That included all of my snapdragons, foxgloves, violas, and chamomile seedlings. Towards the end of the month, I planted my black-eyed Susans, marigolds, and dahlias outside. This year, I planted the dahlias in a different area of the garden, as I have not had a fully successful year with them yet. Fingers crossed this is their year. We also put up netting support for some of the taller plants like the snapdragons and dahlias. I finally learned my lesson from the past couple of years and put a cage support on my peonies as well.

Gardening Tip #3: Always support your tall and top-heavy blooming plants with netting, staking, cages, or a trellis. As the weather becomes more extreme, if your plants do not have proper support, their stems can easily snap, plants can flop over, and they can die.

I almost forgot, I sowed all of my zinnia seeds at the beginning of the month as well. All 100+ of them. I usually overplant because not all the seeds will sprout. This year, it seems like all the babies wanted to be part of the garden, as about 95% sprouted, so I have way more than I need. But I will find a spot for most of them and share some with my mother-in-law. Zinnias are one of my favorite flowers, and I can’t wait to share more about them in the coming months. These, along with the celosia plants, won’t go into the garden until early to mid-May, as they cannot survive cold temperatures at all.

My garden is not just within the enclosure; it extends to several areas around our house. We have several perennial plants lining our backyard like roses, lilies, hostas, hydrangeas, etc. In front of the house, we have peonies, roses, daisies, coneflowers, asters, salvia, etc. Since it’s been so warm and wet this spring, these plants have started growing insanely quick and earlier than usual. An important April task was to prune the rose bushes. I took a couple of hours one Sunday to go through them and prune off all the dead branches. I remember feeling so grounded and relaxed that day. I was out there without any music, no podcast, nothing. It was just me, the plants, and the birds.

I think we need that often, a slow quiet moment in nature. We tend to fill our minds with something every second of the day, to the point that we can’t even hear our own thoughts. As someone who can live inside their head a lot, I need those moments of peace and quiet. This has proven to help with my creativity as well, cutting out the noise of the fast-paced world we live in now.

The past few years of gardening and continuous learning have resulted in our front and back lawn being filled with dandelions and other plants most would consider to be “weeds.” A weed is just a plant in the wrong place, and that is subjective. I will admit, when we first bought the house, we used to spray horrible weed killer and dig out each plant. But not anymore. When I stopped spraying harsh chemicals like weed killer and insecticide, our garden flourished. Weed killer is horrible for the environment and can harm beneficial plants and pollinators. (More on pest control in the coming months.)

Plus, weeds are usually the first source of food for bees and birds in the spring here in the Midwest. Just the other day, we saw a ton of birds on our lawn snacking on dandelions. We are one of a few houses on our block without a perfectly clean and manicured lawn, and I’m okay with that. There’s something about letting things grow where they want that feels a little more like us. And who knows, maybe after a few years we’ll go crazy and plant wildflowers in our entire front lawn.

As April came to an end, I’m happy to report that the snapdragons and violas have already started blooming, which is exciting. I’ve cut a couple handfuls of snapdragons already and brought them into the house, which is also one of my favorite things to do. I get to watch them go through the end of their life cycle. When I bring them into the house, I know they aren’t going to stay alive for long. Some flowers last longer than others, but what I’ve come to realize is that they have the power to keep me in the present. Every time I see their beautiful blooms, even as they start to fade, it brings me back to the moment. It’s like a soft reminder to stop, breathe, and just appreciate the beauty in the now. And as a person who is always thinking about what’s next, I feel incredibly grateful that gardening and flowers have become such a big part of my life, especially in tough seasons. It’s a daily reminder that there is beauty all around us, we just have to slow down to see it.