Gardening This Weekend: April 14, 2022
Here are the mid-April critical tasks for the landscape and garden.
PLANT
• Trees, shrubs, vines, groundcovers. If you can’t find the plants you’re seeking ask your local independent retail nursery owner if they anticipate delivery yet this spring. Some types are in short supply. It’s worth waiting on the really good varieties. Don’t settle for inferior selections just to fill spaces.
• Summer annuals including trailing lantanas, pentas, angelonias, fanflowers, copper plants, firebush, purple fountaingrass, wax begonias, Dragon Wing begonias, ornamental sweet potatoes, moss rose, hybrid purslane, Dahlberg daisies, coleus.
• New turf from sod or plugs. Bermuda can be sown from seed once soil has warmed up considerably (now in South Texas, in May in North Texas).
PRUNE
• Mow lawn regularly and at recommended height for type of grass you’re growing to eliminate as many weeds as possible.
• Spring-flowering shrubs and vines such as forsythias, flowering quince, azaleas, Carolina jessamine, Lady Banksia roses and wisterias (and bridal wreath as they finish blooming) to reshape and remove erratic growth.
• Winter ice, snow and cold damage done to redcedars, crape myrtles, gardenias, oleanders, pittosporums and other plants. Reshape as needed.
FERTILIZE
• Turf, landscape plants and vegetable crops with all-nitrogen fertilizer with as much as half of that nitrogen in encapsulated, timed-release form.
• Annual beds and container plants with high-nitrogen, water-soluble plant food each time that you water them.
• New trees, shrubs with liquid root-stimulator soon after planting. Balled-and-burlapped plants can be fertilized with it three or four times the rest of this summer.
ON THE LOOKOUT
• Snails, slugs and pillbugs devouring tender new growth overnight. Look for slime trails of snails and slugs. Apply Sevin dust or bait. Eliminate fallen leaves and other hiding places.
• Cabbage loopers, cankerworms and other chewing caterpillars can be eliminated by application of the organic remedy Bacillus thuringiensis (B.t.).
• Clover, dandelions, dichondra, poison ivy and other non-grassy weeds can be eliminated with application of a broadleafed herbicide containing 2,4-D. Read and follow label directions carefully to avoid damage to trees and shrubs.