TIMELY  GARDEN  TIPS  FROM

OVER  THE  GARDEN  FENCE

APRIL 12, 2003

On your mark, get set, GO!  This time, spring’s appearance seems to be for real.  Every gardener that I know is more than ready to get back to their gardens.  Since we last met “Over the Garden Fence”, about all we could do is look at our snow-covered gardens under a snowy blanket.  Hopefully, that will be the last major winter blast for this season.

A walk through our gardens this morning will reveal healthy, growing weeds.  We might have left the garden clean last fall, but it’s very evident that some weeds grow under the snow.  It’s important to cultivate out chickweed and other weeds now in perennial gardens and landscape plantings.  If we don’t, the old adage “give them an inch and they’ll take a mile” will kick in.  After weed removal and cultivation, spray on weed stopper or shake on granular Miracle Gro or Preen weed preventer, water in, then spread cedar bark chips or cocoa hull mulch.  This early spring procedure will assure weed-free plantings for this growing season.

This is the best time of year to fertilize established spring flower bulb plantings.  Tulips, narcissus, crocus, and a host of other bulb plants will be growing and strengthening for next year’s bloom.  Scatter Bulb Booster fertilizer around emerged bulb plants and, if there is room, lightly cultivate in.  After blooms have faded, remove bloom stalks and soak the foliage and soil around bulb plants with Bloom Builder.  A little care now will help produce more flowers next spring. 

Any day now our peony plants will be poking up through the moist soil.  This is the time to control Botrytis blight if it has been a problem in the past.  The symptoms of Botrytis blight on peonies are black leaves and stems and flower buds that do not open.  Botrytis can be controlled with three applications of Bordeaux or Halt Fungicide ten days apart, the first as soon as shoots poke up through the ground.

By the way, if you didn’t feed your peonies last fall, now would be a good time.  Use a shovel full of composted manure and a cup of bone meal per plant, cultivated in around the drip line of the plant.  It is important to keep composted manures away from the stems of your peony plants to avoid Botrytis blight.

As we look over the shrub border, check lilacs for scale.  This is the best time of the year to control lilac scale.  I suggest spraying lilacs right now before they begin to grow, with a dormant spray of Saf-T-Side Horticultural Oil.  Only one spray is needed each year.

Every good garden has a nice lawn around it.  To promote good turf, here are a few tips to get your lawn off to a good start.

First of all, it is important to rake areas affected with snow mold to help aerate the grass and allow it to dry out.  If there are patches of dead or thin turf, reseed as soon as possible.

I was asked the other day if a thatching machine should be run over the lawn in the spring.  I do not recommend this.  The best time of year for mechanically removing thatch is during the fall season.

If you didn’t feed your lawn last fall, definitely put a slow-release lawn fertilizer that contains iron on now, such as Scotts Lawn Pro Fertilizer.   It’s important not to put on a fast-release nitrogen fertilizer or you will be mowing your lawn three times a week before you know it.

With so many Japanese beetles in our area, many lawns are infested with Japanese beetle grubs.  A question that has come up frequently is when grub control should be put on.  To kill grub infestations now, apply 10% Permethrin granules or Diazinon.  For up to twenty year’s protection from Japanese beetle grubs, apply Milky Spore granules.

Because of the deep freeze last winter, many lawns are very uneven this spring.  Rolling lawns that have many uneven areas should be done before soil has completely settled.

There should be no rush to apply crabgrass preventer to lawns.  I recommend crabgrass preventers be applied the last week in April.

White pine, arborvitae, Colorado spruce, and many broadleaf evergreens such as holly, rhododendron, pieris japonica, and mahonia are exhibiting needle and leaf browning this spring.  This needle and leaf browning and dying was caused by the winter’s low temperatures, bright sun, and strong winds.  Many buds on these damaged branches are ok and will soon send out new growth.  Damaged leaves and needles may be removed easier now than after new growth has started.  Be sure to fertilize all broadleaf evergreens now with Holly Tone and needled evergreens with Tree Tone.  Reduce the possibility of winter damage next winter by irrigating thoroughly in early November and spraying susceptible plants with Cloud Cover plant protector and mulching the plants with cedar bark mulch.  A two or three inch mulch around the base of plants extending to the drip line will help prevent deep freezing and more root activity, which helps prevent winter damaged evergreens.

Not only the calendar, but the soil conditions indicate that it’s time to begin planting.  Plantings of onion and potato sets can be put in now.  Peas, lettuce, spinach, and radish seeds can also go in now.  Early plantings now of cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli will yield the earliest crop.

It is also time to set out your first planting of gladiolus bulbs.  Spacing your plantings two weeks apart beginning now and planting the last ones on the Fourth of July will give you gladiolus flowers right up until frost.  Be sure to slip some Bulb Booster fertilizer under each glad corm for the very best blooms.

George Wedel