April 11, 2014
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This week
The silver maples flowered, crocuses were as loud in color
as the spring peepers were in voice, the first daffodil opened, all
six weeks late but sooooo lovely. We almost put away our
soil-saving snowshoes... until we took them off and found the soil
still too wet in the very next garden we visited. So we kept them
on to keep cutting, spreading slow release organic fertilizer and
assessing damage, then wrote up reports on as much of that as we
could fit here.
Tomorrow we will be able to begin edging, weeding and
dividing in the warmest and best drained gardens on our beat. We
hope you enjoy your weekend and find a few answers here about what
can be cut back, how far, what's up with the lawn, how to fix
snow-bent arbs and what to expect from the winter burned
plants.
It's one of the most important things we do in spring.
This includes:
Barberry cut all the way to the
ground: Why, how, when.
Boxwood kept shapely, healthy and
small.
Ornamental grasses, simplest cuts
plus an alternative to laborious division.
Holly: How to clip it (or
rhodo/azalea/Pieris), especially after winter-burn
Roses: How, why to cut now not late
Suckers from roots and bases of trees
Yews: Pruning what winter burned
Lawn's an odd color...
White?! Pink?! Scribbled in serpentine lines? Dotted with
cow pies or alien droppings... We can't be blamed for finding it
odd to see lawn after so many months of solid snow, but there are a
number of seriously unusual things making an appearance on lawn. We gather them
together at Lawn odd color.
A stumper, all right: Why pinch when it forces us to
prop?!
Quit putting up with snow-splayed
arborvitaes
You don't have to tie them, tent them, or treat them
specially. Just prop and prune per this excellent photo
report.
Green Thumbs up for
Time to grow
vegetables
Few things are more fun or rewarding. Start some seeds
this weekend, begin eating your own produce in just a few
weeks.
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