Spring is at gardeners' desks and on their minds

On a gardener's desk in midwinter, you'll find a bumper crop of inspiration for the season ahead. There in the dog-eared pages of seed catalogs, reference books and gardening magazines, in well-worn notebooks stuffed with plant labels and pressed flowers, the garden is already springing to life.

"This is an exciting time," says Pat Friesen, a Johnson County, Kan., Extension master gardener who is planning a big vegetable garden this year.

Friesen and her husband, Chuck Jasper, were inspired last year by the style and scope of the Heartland Harvest Garden at Powell Gardens in Kingsville, Mo. Jasper built 15 new raised beds for vegetables in their backyard in Leawood, Kan. It's too soon to plant, but it is never too early to make plans.

IN THE WORKS

Helen Thompson, a garden designer in Leawood whose pretty spring garden fills six pages of the latest issue of Country Gardens magazine, is growing amaryllis on her desk and weeding through folders full of ideas.

She is planning to expand her vegetable garden and make a new nursery area in her backyard. She's also choosing plants for a new perennial border and a butterfly garden.

There's not much to do outside, she admits, but in her sunny office, surrounded by books and papers and dreams, you can almost feel the kiss of May.

Curling up by the fire and dozing through the cold days just doesn't seem to suit local gardeners. Many have been busy planning garden tours, workshops and plant sales. Designers are networking, building relationships with collaborators and clients.

As the days grow longer, so do seed and plant lists. And in the thaws between snowstorms, spring is just starting to show — the green tips of daffodil foliage are poking up through the mulch around town.

"Things are going on all over," says Janese Reed, a garden designer in North Kansas City who is president of the Garden Center Association and a member of the board of the Friends of Powell Gardens. Lately, she has been reading books by speakers who will be in town next week for the biennial gardening symposium organized by the association and the Friends of Powell Gardens.

"It's one of the things that keeps me going," says Reed, who is a Missouri Extension master gardener and a supporter of the Heartland Tree Alliance.

She also is researching easy-care hydrangeas and roses, plus reviewing pictures of her clients' gardens from last summer, working on ways to make them more beautiful.