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A
Spring
Lawn & Garden Calendar
What should I be doing now?
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It's
Finally Spring - March 13
2007 Articles
2006 Articles |
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One
of the most common gardening questions in the spring
is “What should I be doing now?” Here’s a general
lawn & garden calendar to help you keep your early
spring lawn, garden, and landscape work on
schedule.
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March 15-31
Mow the lawn short to
cut off all of last year’s old blades. Set the
mower down to about the second lowest setting and
bag or rake up the clippings. A good short mowing
will allow all of the new green growth to show
through and give you the earliest green lawn in the
neighborhood. Because the soil is usually very soft
in early spring, it’s also a good time to aerate
your lawn.
Prune trees and shrubs.
Most trees and shrubs are best pruned in early
spring. The exception to the rule is that you may
want to delay pruning spring flowering plants like
flowering crabapples and lilacs until after they
bloom.
Cut back and clean up
ornamental grasses and perennial beds. Cool
season ornamental grasses should be cut back as soon
as possible, warm season ornamental grasses can be
cut back now or left standing for another month or
so—they will not begin their new growth until mid to
late May. It’s also time to begin cleaning up last
season’s old perennial stalks. A note of caution,
there’s no need to get carried away with all of this
clean-up. Perennial beds tend to collect a lot of
leaves and other miscellaneous plant debris over the
fall and winter. It’s not always necessary to clean
this up in the spring. It’s high quality organic
matter and it helps to protect the newly emerging
perennial foliage. After a few spring rains, it
will just become a part of the mulch in the bed.
Mulch landscape beds.
Right after the spring clean up is the easiest time
to remulch landscape beds. Mulching is generally an
every other year or every third year task. |
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April 1 – April 15
Perform the first lawn
mowing of the spring if you didn’t get it done
in March. If the weather is warm and dry, you may
want to start up the lawn sprinkler system—although
late April to early May is often when most sprinkler
systems are started up. Some homeowners prefer to
wait until their sprinkler system is turned on
before aerating—running the sprinklers is a good way
to break down the soil plugs that the aerator leaves
laying on the lawn. Aerating can actually be
performed at any time through the spring and summer.
Continue landscape bed
clean-up.
Begin new spring landscape
projects. Most landscape projects involve a lot
of work like removing sod, amending soil with
compost, installing bed edging, and installing
irrigation before planting plants. Getting this
part of your landscape project out of the way while
your spring energy levels are high and the weather
is cool is a great way to make the project seem
easier.
Begin planting spring
annuals and perennial flowers. There are many
annual flowers that not only tolerate frost and
nighttime temperatures in the 20’s, but actually
prefer our variable springtime weather. Pansies,
dianthus, and snapdragons, for example. Getting a
few of these spring-loving flowers into your gardens
or patio planters is a nice way to cure that spring
fever. By the way, almost any perennial that grows
well in Wyobraska is also tolerant of frosty spring
mornings.
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Plant trees and shrubs.
The rule of thumb for springtime planting of trees
and shrubs is “the sooner the better.” The reason
is pretty simple. When actively growing from
mid-May through mid-August, newly planted trees and
shrubs require regular watering until their roots
begin to grow out into the surrounding soil. Early
planting allows time for some of this root growth to
occur before the summer growing season and makes
post planting care a little easier.
Vegetable Gardens. If
you have a vegetable garden that hasn’t been
performing well, this would be a good time to spade
or till in some compost before beginning planting
later in April and May.
Water trees, shrubs, and
landscape beds if it doesn’t rain.
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April 15-April 30
Finish cleaning up and
remulching landscape beds.
Turn on sprinkler systems
and begin lawn and landscape watering as spring
weather requires. Like it or not, begin regular
lawn mowing as your grass requires.
Begin planting up flower
pots and patio planters. I suggest stretching
this fun task out over the entire spring planting
season rather than trying to do it all at once.
This is the time to get the best selection of the
spring’s newest flowers, and if you’re only planting
up a few of your containers, it’s pretty easy to set
them indoors to protect them from an occasional
spring cold snap. By planting a few containers in
late April, a few more in early May, and the last in
late May, you’ll get a nice variety of flowers in
your pots, containers, and hanging baskets—and have
flowers that perform well from early spring through
late fall.
Continue landscape projects.
Continue planting trees and
shrubs.
Begin planting cool season
vegetables—wait on warm season crops like
peppers, cucumbers, and green beans until late May.
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