What's Coming Up 213: Spring cuts, lawn trouble, propping a splayed arb, grow veg

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There is no greater joy than getting your hands into a garden in spring, indoors or out... unless perhaps it's to share that joy with a new gardener. 
 

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.

Spring cut cut cut

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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