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The Ultimate in Winter Plant Protection...
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| Top 10 Spring Gardening Tips |
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Top 10 Spring Gardening Tips - brought to you by Steve Bakowski, owner of Beaver Landscaping, Inc. Clarence NY 14031 (716) 759-7044
1. Remove winter debris (leaves, sticks, garbage) from your garden beds. This eliminates hiding places for mice and over-wintering insect larva. |
2. Prune back broken or desiccated branches from plants. Pruning helps to maintain your plants shape, encourages proper growth, and helps reduce the risk of insects and fungus attacking the wounded areas. |
3. Cut back any perennials or ornamental grasses remaining from the fall to approximately 2-3” from the ground. |
4. Remove dead flower blooms only from flowering bulbs. The remaining stem and green foliage helps to nourish your bulbs for the next year. Do not remove the stem or foliage until it turns brown. |
5. Weeds – every gardener’s persistent and unwanted visitor. There are annual weeds, perennial weeds, and biannual weeds. Basically, a weed is anything in a spot you don’t want it. Keeping weeds from your garden beds is a constant challenge. Weed pre-emergent help slow the invasion of new weed growth by creating an invisible vapor barrier in your beds. Try not to disturb this barrier by walking in your beds. Once a weed goes to seed, expect its family to take root in your garden soon. |
6. Keep excessive heavy mulch away from the stems of your plants. It can cause too much moisture retention and rotting of the stems. Proper mulching helps suppress weed growth and maintain moisture, however, too much can have a negative effect. |
7. Rake your lawn to get the grass standing up. Snow mold can occur due to heavy snow accumulation on the grass. Raking allows for better air circulation and quicker drying time, allows water movement in the soil, and helps stimulate root growth. When soil temperatures hit 50 degrees, you will start to see your lawn green up. |
8. Apply Dormant Oil to plants. As its name suggests, dormant oil needs to be applied to plants when they are in their dormant phase. The oil will suffocate over-wintering larvae, scale, or insect cocoons before they hatch. Most plants can be sprayed but the application rate depends on the temperature. |
9. Cut your lawn for the first time in the spring after the following have occurred: it is no longer saturated with water; it has greened-up from the warmer temperatures (over 50 degrees); it has 2 to 3 inches of new growth. I prefer a desired cutting height of 2.5 to 3 inches. This higher cutting height helps to reduce weed growth from seed from neighboring lawns or transmitted by birds, and reduces stress to the lawn on hot summer days. Grass height = root depth. Cutting your lawn too short will negatively impact root growth and the overall health of your lawn. |
10. Use a well-balanced fertilizer (10/10/10) in your flower beds to help leaf growth, flowering, and overall plant health. |
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Quick Web Tip: How do I make a physical barrier to protect my plants during the winter?
A physical barrier is an effective way to protect plants and shrubbery from the ravages of winter. Wind, snow, and ice can cause severe and permanent damage to your plants. A physical barrier not only protects you garden from old man winter, it can also help prevent animal damage by keeping hungry deer off of your plants.
Burlap wraps, deer fencing, and even temporary frost cloths may be used to help this situation. However, these are not always a permanent or attractive solution to the problem. The Shrub Coat is a cost effective, environmentally friendly, reusable, and attractive means to provide a physical barrier between your plants and shrubbery and the ravages of winter. |
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