By Steve Whipple
MethuenLife Writer

Donna Beeley Berube started gardening because she and her husband George moved into a new home and the grounds were unpleasantly bare.
“There were no plantings when we moved into our new house on Dedham Street except for a couple of shrubs the contractor had put in the front. I didn’t know much about gardening then, but I knew I could put in bulbs,” she laughs.
That first fall, she planted daffodils, tulips and hyacinths, gradually adding azaleas and other spring shrubs, with George’s help.
Bulbs are a gift to the novice gardener as well as the veteran because their scaly layers contain everything they need to grow and bloom. The gardener merely has to plant them in ordinary, well-drained soil and wait for the results.
“Now I have a spring garden which I appreciate so much after a snowy winter,” Donna said. She has since planted more bulbs, several azaleas and a weeping cherry to her front yard.
Some of Donna’s favorite plants live in the stone wall that George built to separate neighboring property. She had him build a well in the wall for her favorites. He even buried a drip hose, neatly covered with mulch, for consistent watering.
“The wall has worked out well. I call it my friendship garden,” she said. “I’ve filled the wall with plants I get from Methuen Garden Club members or from my daughters-in-law.”
The Berubes have three sons and six grandchildren who live nearby. Donna’s father, Fred, will soon be arriving from Florida to spend the summer at the family homestead on Howe Street where he now shares a separate apartment downstairs from his grandson and his family. Donna’s mother, Beatrice, died some years ago.
“My father had a huge garden at one time. I remember the hollyhocks taller than me next to the garage and his vegetable garden. My grandfather, Peter Beeley, had a vegetable garden too. And I have one of my grandmother’s peonies, which is at least 75 years old. It’s white with a big gorgeous red in the middle. We brought it from Howe Street when we moved.”
Donna does not yet own many garden books, although she does check the Internet for information.
Her most consistent teachers are other members of the Garden Club, many of them with years of gardening behind them. Donna has also acquired many plants at the Garden Club “swaps” where members bring plants from their own garden.
“I don’t spend a lot of money on plants anymore because members give me lots from their own garden. I hope soon to be in the position of having plants to swap with others,” she said.
As for advice, she’s surrounded by amateur horticulturists who are eager to share their knowledge.
“I ask a question and invariably someone has the answer. I also learn a lot by helping on the club’s special projects. I work at the Searles Building, which is one of the Garden Club’s community projects. They put me to work weeding and pruning the perennial gardens, but I’m beside someone who knows what they are doing.”
At home, she sticks to perennials, filling bare spots with annuals.
“I like perennials and they seem to do well in this garden because the soil is rich. Once they get settled and start growing, I just sit back and enjoy.”
The Berubes’ hobby keeps them away on summer weekends. They have an Ambassador and a Hornet X75, which George restored, and drive them to American Motors rallies and cruises across New England.
Even on a cold spring day recently, Donna’s purple irises were a foot high and growing. Creeping phlox was about to explode with color. Liatris (gay feather), black-eyed Susans, California poppies, shasta daisies and her prize bulbs, allium gigantium (ornamental onion), were all gaining steam.
For a beginner gardener, Donna is very savvy and courageous about trying new things. She starts seeds for annuals in the spring in her small, plastic greenhouse, which she calls a cold house, at the edge of her property.
To their great delight, the Berubes’ back yard is big enough for all her flowers with a big space in the middle for her six grandchildren to run around in or play baseball.
“All my perennials are coming up,” Donna said. “I have high hopes for a great season.”

• Help with Memorial Day cemetery arrangements: Members of Methuen Garden Club will make floral arrangements for your deceased loved ones and plant them in the ground for you by Memorial Day if you order by May 11. They offer six affordable floral packages with prices as low as $18. A choice of two container arrangements are available as well. For more information, call Deb Monn at (978) 804-7166 or Linda Yuele at (978) 687-9892.

• Free passes to wildflower garden: The Garden in the Woods in Framingham opened for the season. Did you know that the Methuen Garden Club donated two free passes for the wildflower garden to Nevins Library? Call the front desk to see if the passes are available when you want them.

• Lilac Sunday: May 10 at Arnold Arboretum on the Jamaica Way, Jamaica Plain. Not to be missed, at least once in your life. Free. www.arboretum.harvard.org.

• North Andover Garden Club Plant Sale: May 17 at Stevens Memorial Library, North Andover. Most plants on sale are from the gardens of club members. www.northandovergardenclub.com.

• 24th annual Botanical Garden Plant Sale: May 30 starting at 11 am at Tower Hill Botanical Gardens, Boylston. Rain or shine. Special “Great Plants — Great Price” section devoted to donations dug from the gardens of members and friends. Twenty or more plant societies. Parking: $1. Bring a wagon or portable device to carry your loot. www.towerhillbg.org.

• Greenscapes Web site: Try www.greenscapes.org for advice on grass, listings of fun events and lots of “green” advice. The Greenscapes Massachusetts program helps protect water resources, save money and the environment. It is a collaboration of many partners and grantors, including the Ipswich River Watershed Association.

• Grass takes a back seat: For the first time in years, gardeners are planning to put more money into growing vegetables and fruit than in growing grass. In the 2009 Early Spring Gardening Trends Research Report released by the Garden Writers Association Foundation, consumers say they expect not only to save money, but to eat better quality, better tasting and more nutritious food.

• Problems with colored mulches: The dyes used in colored mulches are basically harmless, studies show, but worries still persist about using these newer mulches. The problem with colored mulches is the source of the wood chips and the chance that such wood is contaminated with toxic substances. Most wood used for the colored mulches comes from recycled wood: wood scraps, wood pallets and wood reclaimed from construction and demolition waste. Some of this is contaminated with various chemicals, such as creosote and CCA (chromate copper arsenate). CCA is the chemical that was used in pressure-treated wood and although banned, there is still plenty of this wood in older decks and fences. CCA and other toxic chemicals have been found in the soil where colored wood ship mulch has been applied. If you plan to use colored mulch, make sure you know the supplier and the source of the wood used to make it, advises Ron Kujawski, Extension agent at UMass Extension, as reported in “Garden Clippings,” an educational newsletter for New England gardeners (June 2007).

Chris Young is a freelance writer who loves to garden. Write to her at chriswords@verizon.net.

• When daffodils and other spring bulbs finish blooming, allow the leaves to continue growing to rebuild food reserves for next year. When the leaves are brown and wilted, they come off easily.
• Time to set up rain barrels under downspouts. You will save water to water plants throughout the summer. Float “dunks” with B.t. (a biological insecticide) to kill mosquitoes.
• Be on the lookout for other standing water in your yard. Mosquitoes can develop in four days.
• Don’t jump the gun by planting tender annuals like tomatoes, herbs, and most annuals until the end of the month. The official frost-free date for most of New England is May 31.
• Prune spring-flowering shrubs like forsythia, rhododendron, pieris (Japanese andromeda) or lilac after they bloom.
• Plant gladiolus and dahlias bulbs for flowers later this summer.
• Harvest rhubarb by pulling, rather than cutting. Pull no more than a half or two-thirds of the stalks per plant.
• When soils have warmed, apply organic mulch to conserve water and reduce weeds later in the season.
• Wait until the end of the month to move houseplants outdoors.
Information courtesy of UMass Extension Services, Amherst.