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TIMELY GARDEN TIPS FROM I can't remember a better start to any gardening season. Warm days, abundant soil moisture, and lots of sunshine. Ideal for plant growth - ideal for gardeners. Our list of garden projects is growing just as fast as the May apples in the shade garden. So we don't overlook any important items, let's take a walk through the garden and make a to-do list. First on every gardener's list should be to remove any mulch and dead leaves that cover sprouting spring bulbs, such as tulips and alliums. Too much organic material on top of sprouting spring flower bulbs will smother and kill them. This is a job best done by hand to prevent any emerging sprouts from being broken off. After tidying up bulb plantings, be sure to feed them with bulb fertilizer. Feeding bulb plants now will help them produce better and more flowers for spring 2005. Next on my list is to spray rabbit repellent on all emerging tulips and other susceptible spring bulb flowers. Rabbits will eat both leaves and flowers of tulips and ruin your spring flower show. Spray ready-to-use Repellex repellent on any dry day when temperatures are above 40 degrees. One spray of Repellex will last several weeks. Areas of matted light brown turf should be lightly fluffed up with a leaf rake to allow grass to dry out and help stop the spread of snow mold. Stop it, you say? Yes, snow mold is very active at this time of year on cloudy, damp, cool days and can spread quickly. It is not necessary to have snow on the ground for snow mold to wipe out large areas of turf; there only needs to be cool, damp weather. If there are areas in your lawn that exhibit snow mold damage, act now! First rake, then spray Banner fungicide on infected and surrounding areas. Lawns that were not fertilized last October or November should be given a feeding of iron-enriched Lawn Pro turf food now. This will promote earlier green-up and provide the proper amount of nitrogen until your late April lawn fertilizer with crabgrass preventer is applied. Early spring is a good time to have your soil checked to see if it is in need of gypsum, soil sulfur, Ironite, or lime. Adjusting your soil to the proper pH will not only promote plant and turf health, but it will also help plant foods become more readily used, which translates into more garden, lawn, and landscape success. If when you are doing lawn chores you notice moss in the lawn, now would be a fine time to control it. Moss grows well in cool, damp weather and can be killed easily with one application of Scotts Moss Control. After moss has died back, bring in a core soil sample to Wedel's for analyzing. Often soil conditions can be corrected to help minimize shallow grass roots and the return of moss. Some lawn weeds get off to a faster start than others. One of the earliest growers and toughest to kill lawn weeds is creeping veronica. A close examination of partly shaded lawns often will reveal a creeping small leaf weed that looks much like chickweed. Unlike chickweed, which is often prolific but easy to kill, veronica, up to now, has been almost impossible to control. Lawn owners who have tried conventional weed killers soon found out that they had an infestation of veronica they were contending with. Most weed controls in the past just bounced off the blue flowered creeper. Now there is help to kill and control creeping veronica. Triclopyr is also effective on other hard to control vining weeds in lawns, such as ground ivy, wild morning glory, oxalis, and sorrel. If your favorite broadleaf weed control has failed to control some difficult weeds, try Triclopyr. Grub activity in turf is picking up in most neighborhoods. Chafer grubs and Japanese beetle grubs can be killed now. Permethrin or Dylox granules applied at this time to lawns will provide control before damage to turf is noticed. Be sure to irrigate into turf well after application. For all year grub control, apply Grubex in June or July. For permanent Japanese grub control, apply Milky Spore any time April through October. Early spring is a good time to fertilize shade trees. I recommend feeding trees with Tree Tone. Tree Tone's organic base for slow feeding and extensive list of essential trace elements will help keep your trees healthy and growing well. My method of feeding shade trees has given good results for years. I create a feeding zone by drilling circles of holes into the soil, two feet apart and six inches deep. There should be three circles of holes: one at the drip line, one five feet beyond, and one five feet from the drip line towards the trunk. Place one cup of Tree Tone in each hole. After fertilizer has been placed in the holes, apply one and a half inch of irrigation to the entire tree root zone. If you value your shade trees, be sure to feed them every year. Did your maple, birch, elm, and oak trees have that shot-hole look last year? Canker worms, or sometimes called inch worms, were most likely the culprit. Prevent inch worm damage to your shade trees this year by applying Tree Tanglefoot now. Bands of Tanglefoot on tree trunks will trap egg-laying moths that are active in early spring. Zimmermann pine borers can be controlled at this time. White, Red, Scotch, Austrian, and Mugho Pine and Douglas Fir are affected. Spray valuable pine and fir trees with sprays of Cygon now and a second application the third week of May. Iris borers should be controlled now. Spray iris leaves thoroughly, using Cygon with a spreader sticker added. Three applications, one week apart, give good control of iris borers. Many vegetable gardeners are just itching to begin planting. If your vegetable garden soil was turned last autumn and is sufficiently dried, your gardening season can officially begin. First, stop at Wedel's Garden Center to select seeds and sets of your favorite vegetables. Check out the great selection of seed potato sets; they include Kennebec, Red Norland, All Blue, Red Pontiac, Russet Burbank, Superior, and Yukon Gold. Potato sets may be planted now. When planting potatoes, I always use the following fertilizer: calcium nitrate, gypsum, and Plant Tone. Potato plants produce larger potatoes that store much better when there is an abundance of calcium in the soil. Other vegetables that may be safely planted now are red, white, and yellow onion sets, garlic sets, and garden peas. Fertilize asparagus plants now. Apply one cup of Plant Tone mixed with 1/4 cup of urea to each plant. Scatter this mixture over the entire root zone, cultivate into the soil, and soak the soil thoroughly. Fertilize bramble fruits now. Raspberry, gooseberry, current, and blueberry plants should be fed with one shovel full of composted cow manure and two cups of Plant Tone per plant. Fertilize strawberry plants only after harvest, never in early spring. Sometimes overlooked when shopping for summer garden color, but always admired when in bloom, are non-hardy tubers, corms, and bulbs. These plants originate in warm parts of the world and will not live over winter here, but used in our summer gardens, they can be simply gorgeous. They can be treated as annuals letting them die back at the summer's end or can be saved for future summer enjoyment by storing them over winter. No shade-loving flower is more velvety than the begonia. With its bright nodding multi-petaled flowers in the richest shades of deep to pastel pink, red, yellow, peach, white, and orange begonias often look too good to be real in a shaded setting. Plus, they will bloom and bloom and bloom. There's even a kind named "non-stop begonia". Start begonia tubers now from Wedel's selection of 15 varieties or buy blooming begonia plants in May from our greenhouse. Glads are the latest "come-back kids" of garden fashion, fast gaining a new following among gardeners who've discovered their appeal as fanciful floral accent pieces. Too long relegated to clunky block plantings or cutting gardens, gladioli are suddenly popping up in unexpected spots as gardeners take a second look at this glorious plant that is considered the ultimate fashion flower in Italy. The best way to plant glads is to scatter them about, hither and yon in small groupings, to bring joyful pizzazz to other plantings. Sun-loving glads are tender corms similar to bulbs. Tuck new batches into the ground every two weeks, now until July first, for successive waves of color all summer long. Begin planting glad corms now from Wedel's selection of over 25 varieties and colors. Dahlias dazzle the summer garden with an intoxicating abundance of color and form. These sun lovers come in all sizes on stems ranging from twelve inches to five feet tall. Their flowers can be small and spunky or large as dinner plates, and come in nearly every color under the sun. In all its forms, the dahlia is a scene-stealer in the garden. Plant them in full sun in the garden or in containers. Dahlias are planted as tubers. To lengthen their blooming season, start in pots in April, then set them out in the garden or in pots on the deck the third week in May. Wedel's specializes in dahlias with over 25 varieties and colors to select from. Cannas have flowers, but to most people, these are only incidental. It's their dramatic foliage that is all the rage. No other plant has foliage like cannas do! Five feet tall and flamboyant, the canna has a desirable tropical lushness with leaves of green, burgundy, bronze, brown, or multi-striped. Their flowers do seem almost an afterthought, big and brassy, they simply unfurl like winged visitors up top, then fade and flutter away. Cannas thrive in full sun and hot weather. For the best summer show, pot up some cannas now and they will be ready to offer their beauty as soon as they are set out in late May. Enjoy cannas in the garden as bold focal plants or as outstanding container plantings. Wedel's offers twelve canna varieties, both short and tall. Enjoy all of these blooming beauties in your gardens, patio, and deck this summer by planting now. I hope each of you will have the opportunity to visit your garden today to dream, play, experiment, and enjoy the wonderful world of gardening. George Wedel |