It’s time
to get out and start playing in
the garden!
Cleaning
up garden beds, surveying all that is (or isn’t) starting to come
up-- I love this time of year. The more work you can do now in your garden,
the more payoff you’ll get in midsummer when you’re able
to relax. It’s a lot harder to tend the plants when they’re
in full leaf and already exhibiting signs of stress or neglect. A good
example: put down slug killer now before hostas and other slug favorites
get big enough to hide the little slimeheads. Sluggo™ is good stuff;
non-toxic to animals but a nightmare for slugs! Also try kitty litter
(though in time it will absorb enough moisture to soften its slug-piercing
edges) or strips of copper wire. Something about the chemistry of slug
skin and copper doesn’t mix and they get zapped. Gee, bummer….
About fertilizing:
I like using a handheld ‘whirlybird’ broadcast spreader to distribute a basic granular fertilizer. I don’t recommend weed-n-feed products (i.e. Preen™) for the garden; so many of the treasures to bloom this season come from plants self-seeding and these pre-emergent herbicides will kill them. Not to mention, they contain chemicals. However, if you really need to apply a pre-emergent herbicide, try corn gluten meal. This is a natural byproduct of the corn wet-milling process, and found to be extremely effective.
Care Guides
Downloadable Acrobat files with specific information you can use!
Make sure your fertilizer addresses your plants’ needs;
for example, hollies, rhodies, azaleas and blueberries are all plants that need a more acidic soil to grow their best. After working a conditioner like ammonium sulfate into the soil around these plants to keep the pH low, apply a fertilizer like Espoma Holly Tone™ or cottonseed meal in spring. Super phosphate is excellent for flowering plants with woody stems (lilac, wisteria, pink and white hydrangeas, roses, butterfly bush, weigela, etc.). Just sprinkle a cup around the base of each plant and gently work it into the soil, then water well.
Oh,
and speaking of watering,
never fertilize a dry garden. It’s
like taking vitamins on an empty stomach-- you need some food and water
to help absorb the vitamin and send it on its journey, otherwise you
can feel sick and suffer adverse reactions. Water your garden beds well
a few hours or the day before you feed; the same goes for containers
and windowboxes.
If you have plants that need a more alkaline soil
(higher pH), work
in a handful of garden (horticultural) lime into the soil at their base.
This includes lilacs, baby’s breath, lavender, red valerian (centranthus
ruber), pinks (dianthus), sea kale (crambe) and peonies.
Now that the soil
is slowly warming up,
it’s time to start applying
SoilSoup®. Check out all the info on our ‘Featured
Products’ page…..
So get to work, gang. Your garden is calling!
