Gardening This Weekend: April 10, 2025
Perhaps we’re done with the cold-weather and rain delays to our springtime gardening. Here’s your “to-do” list for this weekend.
PLANT
• Warm-season annual color, including marigolds, zinnias, cosmos, celosias, coleus, wax begonias, and the many less common types. Unless you’re in South Texas, it’s wise to wait for still warmer weather to plant caladiums, vinca, copper plants, bougainvilleas, hibiscus, Gold Star Esperanza, and firebush. Give soils another few weeks to warm.
• Perennials while nurseries have their best selections in quart and gallon containers. Choose carefully. Do your homework before buying so you’ll know each type’s mature height, bloom time, and color. Perennial gardens require detailed planning.
• Warm-season vegetables, including bush green beans, corn, cucumbers, squash, peppers, tomatoes, and melons. Remember to stick with small- and mid-sized tomatoes and melons for best productivity as temperatures rise.
• Nursery stock while garden centers are still well stocked. Some of the most popular varieties are in short supply. Rather than compromising your landscape’s appearance, ask to be put on a waiting list to be notified when supplies are replenished.
• New sod now that ground is sufficiently warm. Wait 2-4 weeks to sow bermdua seed.
Note: If you’re trying to plant new grass where old turf has died in the shade, be warned that the problem is probably insufficient sunlight. If you have tried St. Augustine (our most shade-tolerant turf) and even it failed, you’ll be wasting money to keep trying new sod.
PRUNE
• Watch trees for dead or damaged branches that could crack or break in strong spring winds. (You’ll see that I’m still getting questions on this topic in our Q&A section this week.) Have a certified arborist do the pruning if there is any chance of someone being hurt if you do it yourself.
• Spring-flowering shrubs and vines immediately after they finish blooming to keep them in bounds and to maintain their attractive natural forms (no globes or cubes for the shrubs).
• Mow lawn regularly and at recommended height to eliminate most weeds and get turf off to a good start.
• Houseplants you are bringing back onto the patio to restore good shape. Repot as needed.
FERTILIZE
• New flower and vegetable transplants, also patio pots and hanging baskets with water-soluble, high-nitrogen fertilizer each time you water them.
• All landscape plants with all-nitrogen food containing as much as half that nitrogen in slow-release form.
• Turfgrass with that same all-nitrogen lawn food.
• Even flowers and vegetables with the same all-N fertilizer unless a soil test suggests otherwise.
ON THE LOOKOUT
• Non-grassy weeds in lawns (dandelions, clover, oxalis, crow poison, thistles, and dozens of others) can be controlled with broadleafed weedkiller spray containing 2,4-D and perhaps two other active ingredients. The spray will be most effective when applied to vigorous new growth. Do not mow for several days before and after you spray.
• Aphids clustering on tender new growth of many types of insects. They are pear-shaped and pinhead-sized, coming in a variety of colors. You can probably wash them off with a hard stream of water. Organic and inorganic insecticides also control them effectively.
• Snails, slugs and pillbugs devouring foliage, stems of tender new growth. Use Sevin dust or baits or sink pan of beer flush with soil surface to lure the pests to its fermenting smell. They will fall in and drown.