Tips & Topics
Gardening Tips & Topics – Spring
For Your Lawn
- Rake up winter debris and matted turf. Apply a lawn fertilizer with pre-emergent control to keep crabgrass in check.
- Test soil for pH and nutrient content.
For Your Vegetable Garden
- Feed your compost pile with lawn trimmings and shredded brown leaf, alternating layers. Add an activator to speed up decomposition.
For Your Flower Beds
- Clean up and prepare garden beds. Till when soil is workable and amend with organic material.
- Start annual flowers and vegetables indoors. Transplant when all danger of frost has passed.
- Feed daffodils and tulips with 5-10-5 or similar fertilizer when plants reach 4 to 5 inches in height.
- Plant cool-weather vegetables as soon as soil can be worked.
For Your Trees and Shrubs
- Prune summer- and fall-blooming shrubs and trees while plants are still dormant. Spring-flowering shrubs, such as lilac, forsythia, and early-season azaleas, should be pruned immediately after flowering, before next year’s buds have set.
- Fertilize all trees and shrubs after the ground has thawed.
- Control scale on trees and shrubs with application of dormant oil spray. Do not apply if freezing temperatures are expected or if plants are not dormant.