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A
Loooooooong Winter
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Winter descended on Wyobraska
in early October of this past year, with not one,
but two, big October snowstorms buried what were
still colorful early fall landscapes under heavy wet
snow. It was little consolation that the snow from
the October storms melted before the November and
December snows arrived, because the October storms
had destroyed the fall color as well as the winter
interest of ornamental grasses, most perennials, and
even most trees and shrubs well in advance of what
has turned out to be perhaps the harshest, certainly
the longest and dreariest, winter in not years, but
decades. And it may not be over yet. Count me
among those who have yet to see a robin in 2010.
“Green shoots” was the term that economists and
politicians used in the spring of 2009 to describe
any good economic news indicating a recovery from
the worst of the depression. For Wyobraskans in
the spring of 2010, “green shoots” will mean any
sign of the return of life to lawn or landscape.
For the past 10 to 15 years,
dependable January or February thaws have allowed
Wyobraska homeowners to get a head start on spring
landscape work, but the only landscape work done in
January or February of this year involved a snow
shovel. When the warm spring sunshine finally
arrives, the crusted winter snow finally melts, and
the ubiquitous mud finally dries up, Wyobraska
homeowners will find themselves already behind
schedule on the earliest of the spring lawn and
landscape work.
Here are a few of those early
spring landscape chores that you might want to put
on the “Honey-Do” list for that first warm and
sunny weekend. As for me, I plan to be outside
this weekend looking for robins.
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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.
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. The early
snowstorms last fall mostly flattened even the
sturdiest of perennial stalks, so my recommendation
is to go ahead and clean up your perennial beds as
soon as your schedule permits this spring, because
there’s not a lot of visual interest left after the
long winter. 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. A light raking through the perennial bed
once all of the old stalks have been cut off will
generally pick up the course debris and spread the
good stuff around so the bed looks neat for spring.
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. There’s a lot of good information about how
to prune young trees on the internet. I always
suggest reading the information on two or three
sites just in case the first site you select is out
of date or just plain wrong. |
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Mulch landscape beds.
Right after the spring clean up is the easiest time
to re-mulch landscape beds. Mulching is generally
an every other year or every third year task.
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.
Begin planting spring 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.
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