Traveling garden coach has top tips for your yard

Gardening coach Jess Zander crouched behind a serviceberry by the front steps of a Medford, Massachusetts, home, lopping off branches with hedge shears.Watch the gardening lesson in the video player above “You would do something like this,” she said to homeowner Jessie Schiller, as she made a cut by the tree's base. Zander travels from town to town, helping homeowners visualize a better, more manageable yard. She left her job as a CFO last year when her social media accounts under the handle You Can Do It Gardening took off, and her requests for garden coaching shot up.Invasive plants When she arrives at a home, Zander first scans for invasive plants. “That’s the first thing I look for. I’m doing a sweep; I’m always seeing something. There’s a handful out of hundreds of properties that don’t have anything,” she said. At the home in Medford, she found black swallow-wort. “You’ve got to get it by the root, and you’ve got to get it before it goes to seed,” she told Schiller as she pushed a trowel into the ground and popped the plant up, revealing long, knobby roots. Zander emphasized homeowners should be aware of invasive plants on their property and try to keep up with them as much as possible. Some, like Japanese knotweed, can be destructive and may require herbicides to eradicate them.Shop your own yard Zander urges gardeners to take stock of the plants they already have on their property before heading to the nearest nursery. At Schiller’s home, she split off a piece of an ajuga plant with her trowel and put the flowering groundcover back in another bed. Zander said many homeowners are hesitant to divide plants in their yard, but it saves money. “They’re afraid of killing their plants,” she said. “They buy all the same stuff. If they like a hosta, they’ll go get the same hosta. You can divide your plants, and they’ll be just fine.”When to water Some plants may need to be watered twice a day depending on how hot and dry the weather gets. Pay particular attention to bushes and trees newly planted this season. “If you put your finger in the soil and it’s dry, you need to water more. And if it’s moist, you don’t need to do anything. If it’s super-saturated, you’re either overwatering, or it’s been raining a ton, and you don’t need to water,” she advised.Pruning Zander trimmed the serviceberry, keeping it from crowding its neighbor — a rhododendron with clusters of purple flowers. Pruning plants back also encourages new growth and Zander urges homeowners to be aggressive. “It’s really hard to kill a plant. They want to live, and they will find a way,” she said. Pruning at the right time is key, though. To optimize blooms for the following year, trim after this year’s flowers have fallen off. “So, it’s the lilacs, rhododendrons and azaleas; they’re coming to an end soon. You get in there, and you prune,” she advised. Zander’s perennial advice for budding gardeners is to keep projects manageable and be realistic about how much time you can dedicate to your yard. “It should be fun,” she said with a smile.