Garden Center at Canoga Park #612

On those beautiful days, clean up the yard before everything blooms in earnest. Lawn care is often a priority, as well. Planning your garden lets you make the most of your time and space. You can also add beauty and interest with hardscaping, stonework, and water features. No matter what outdoor projects you choose to tackle, The Home Depot Canoga Park Garden Center can help you enjoy your spring activities to the fullest.

Plant Hardiness Zones Explained
The first thing you should know when planting spring flowers, vegetables, and other seeds is your planting zone. Every location in the U.S. and its territories is sorted by climate. Find your zone on the USDA plant hardiness zone map and learn when to plant seeds.

For example, you could plant bell pepper seedlings outdoors in mid-March in Zone 10, but not until the end of May in Zone 4. The plants that'll thrive in your area are in your zone, and all the zones numbered less than that. In other words, a Zone 5 garden can support plants listed as Zones 1–5. The timeframe to direct sow outdoors in your garden is often around a month later than the indoor start date. Read your seed packet for details. If you start them later than recommended, it's not ideal, but it should even out as time passes.

Gardening in Your Growing Zone
This area is in growing Zones 8 or 9, but it’s desert, so utilize greenhouses to grow vegetables and herbs. Native plants like cacti, succulents, and other hardy desert shrubs will grow outside with ease. Other beloved garden vegetables love the heat, like tomatoes, squash, peppers, and cucumbers. If you start them indoors and carefully introduce them outdoors in the shade, you can enjoy raising vegetables even in a dry climate. However, many spring flowers are sensitive to that much sun and heat, so research to find which varieties can handle the weather before planting outdoors.

An indoor garden of greenery is also lovely, so create an oasis within your home. An enclosed porch or sunroom is a great place to encourage plant growth, especially with pots and plant stands of all sizes. Your spring flower seed choices, whether they're perennials or annuals, can also often get an indoor start.

Plant Seeds Outside With Direct Sow
Planting seeds into your garden soil, or using the direct sow method, is an alternative option. There's less planning and tending than growing indoors. If you like to go with the flow, follow the instructions on your seed package and try it out.

Prepare to deal with whatever hand nature deals you: Be ready for none of your seeds to sprout, all of them to come up, and anything in between. Your seedlings will need to survive wind, rain, critters and insects that crave tender greens, and sudden cold snaps. But if you're lucky, you'll get strong sprouts that are ready to grow all spring.

Start Seeds Indoors
If you'd like more control over your seedlings' journey or you're eager to get growing, start your seeds indoors instead. In general, you can plant seeds indoors about a month before you can do it outside. Like direct sow, you push the seeds into the soil as directed on the seed packet, but that's where the similarities end.

You're responsible for giving them quality substitutes for rain and sunlight. Keep your seeds cozy with heat mats and grow lights, water them carefully with a mister or watering can, then thin them as they germinate in groups of three. Give them a boost with a gently blowing fan as they lengthen into sprouts if you'd like. Harden them off to get them used to outdoor conditions, then transplant them into your garden when they're big enough.

Transplant Young Plants Into Their New Homes
You've raised your baby plants from seeds, watched them sprout, and carefully hardened them off to brave Mother Nature. By now, your plants have 3 or 4 real leaves — they'll look different from the miniature seedling leaves. When you're not expecting soaking rain, and the ground is warm, look into transplanting your small plants into their new outdoor home. "Transplant" means that you put these small plants straight into the garden soil or into pots. In cases where you direct sowed, you may still want to shuffle plants around for the best sun and spacing. That's also a transplant situation, as is repotting plants into larger pots.

Protect Your Garden With Mulch
Finish it off with compost and mulch. Compost enriches the soil so your garden can grow even better. It may help foster larger and stronger plants that bear more flowers and fruit. Mulch keeps your soil moist and controls weeds. Compost and mulch can be DIY creations, but you can also purchase them in-store. The next time you're looking for "mulch near me," stop by the Garden Center to get the right amount.

Greet the Spring
Early spring is an exciting time in the world of gardening. Don't miss a minute of growing season. Prepare to fertilize your lawn, plan your garden and landscaping, and browse our garden center pages to find inspiration on what to plant when the weather warms. Shop for the seeds, fertilizer, and soil you need in the aisles of your Canoga Park Garden Center, online, or on our mobile app. Let's get growing together.