01 Mar Early Spring Garden Preparation
How Should I Get My Garden Ready For Spring?
Use these early spring garden preparation ideas to start getting your garden ready for planting. Get outside and enjoy the beauty of spring while you clean up the remnants of winter and prepare your garden for planting.
For Your Lawn
- Fertilize your lawn.
- Re-seed areas of winter-killed lawn.
- Apply pre-emergent crabgrass controls.
For Your Vegetable Garden
- Early spring vegetables can be planted as early as eight weeks before the last expected frost. These include lettuce, kale, radishes. cabbage and spinach. Read seed packets for each variety if unsure about planting date.
- Prepare beds for planting tender vegetables – tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, eggplants, pumpkins. These can be planted once all danger of frost has passed.
- Add 4″-6″ of compost to your planting beds and thoroughly work into soil.
For Your Flower Beds
- Prune hybrid tea and floribunda roses. Fertilize and water as needed.
- Prune forsythia and other spring flowering shrubs after they finish blooming.
- Feed tulip beds with 5-10-5 fertilizer.
- Clean water gardens before growth begins. Plant new hardy water lilies.
- Plant hardy annual and perennial flowering plants, such as pansies,violas, ranunculus (buttercups) and stock.
- Divide and transplant overcrowded perennials.
- Repair broken trellises, arbors and obelisks.
- Add supports to perennials.
For Your Trees and Shrubs
- Fertilize trees and shrubs. Remember to feed acid-loving plants, such as broad leaf evergreens.
- Apply dormant oil spray to trees and shrubs if you have not done so already. Do not apply if plants are not dormant or if freezing temperatures are expected.
- Replace any dead or winter-damaged trees or shrubs.
If you need help with any of your early spring garden preparation chores, or further information, give us a call – 609-641-0648.