46April 13, 2017
Well, there is nothing like temperatures in the 70’s and 80’s to melt away the last remnants of the snow. It’s time to get out into the yard!
The lawn will need to be raked up to rid the lawn of the twigs, trash and dead grass. If you look at your lawn and there are patches of moss, do not rake out the moss. The moss will just grow back again. You must apply a moss killer and wait for the moss to turn black. Once the moss turns black, you can rake out the moss. Moss grows in areas that stay moist, usually areas that are shady and in areas that have poor drainage. You usually can’t do a lot about shady but you can apply gypsum to break up compacted soil, which in turn, increases the drainage. If you have already raked up the moss, you can treat the moss once it returns.
It is also time to fertilize your lawn. It is very likely that you had some crabgrass in your lawn last summer. The crabgrass plants are an annual grass and that means that the plants die after being hit with a frost last fall. The got yah is that the crabgrass plants drop 100’s of seeds before they die in the fall. Those seeds will sprout in the spring and the crabgrass plants become more of a problem this late spring through the summer. If crabgrass was a problem in your lawn, your first application of lawn fertilizer should contain a crabgrass control. Crabgrass control products kill the crabgrass seed before it can grow into crabgrass plants. If you think that you are going to re-seed your lawn this spring, you do not want to use the commonly available crabgrass control products. The chemical in the commonly available control will also kill grass seed. It will stay active in the soil for quite a while. You will need to wait 16 weeks for this product to dissipate before you can seed your lawn. There are 2 different crabgrass control products that allow you to seed your lawn sooner. The organic crabgrass control lasts about 4 weeks in the soil. There is another control that uses a different chemical that will allow you to immediately seed your lawn. We carry both of these products in our store.
Your trees and shrubs probably took a beating this past winter. You may have to cut out dead branches on your shrubs and trees. This is desirable to do and your plants have a better chance of survival if you remove the damage. Trees and shrubs will benefit from an application of fertilizer this spring. The fertilizer will help the plants to re-establish the roots that were damaged by the prolong drought of last summer. Depending on the type of shrub, you should also fertilize after the shrub has finished blooming. Most fertilizers work best if there is some water applied after the fertilizer has been applied. This could be rain or you may have to break out the hose or the watering can and apply the water.
Pansies and violas are some of the first flowers you can plant in the spring. They are very cold tolerant and the new varieties will flower for a long time if you fertilize the plants and if you remove the old flowers.
Sunday is Easter and many of the Easter plants can be planted in your yard or in planters. We have a large selection of pansies, violas and Easter plants available. I hope you will stop by, take a look and buy a few plants. We will be open Easter Sunday.
Well, that’s all for this week. I’ll talk to you again next week.