early spring Archives - Organically Green

Prepare Your Garden for Spring

Posted March 17, 2021

It’s finally that time of year! Spring is almost here! It’s time to prepare your garden for another growing season.

Hopefully, through the winter you’ve been staying on top of things like deadheading and pruning that way you have a head start on cleanup tasks, but if you haven’t now is the time to start!

Remove old flower heads from perennial plants, living weeds, damaged branches, and older mulch and grass clippings. Most of these things can be placed in a compost heap to become incorporated into the soil. If it is already well-composted in place you can use organic matter to work into the soil and increase nutrient levels. You want to expose the soil so you can prepare it for flowers and other plants.

At this point you can add an organic fertilizer along with the older mulch, working the soil until it’s all mixed in. This will ready the garden bed for spring planting, and giving it the nutrients it needs to support your flowers and vegetables. This will also help to loosen up the soil which is important after being compacted all winter long. While you’re digging up the soil, it’s the perfect time to perform a soil test to see what your pH levels are and whether or not you need to make adjustments. Your local cooperative extension can help with this.

If you’re going to be using raised bed planters early spring is a good time to purchase soil specifically formulated for raised beds. While it may be too early to plant most crops, being prepared for warmer weather never hurts. If you decide to plant cool weather crops like lettuce, asparagus, and Brussel sprouts, be sure to cover crops with a frost protectant on nights that may still be extremely cold.

Finally, once you’ve gotten your beds prepared and your garden ready for next month’s planting you can spend some time dividing up perennials—like bearded iris, hostas, and daylilies. These perennials can often begin to crowd each other out over time, causing their blooms to get smaller and more sparse as time goes on. By splitting them you give them more room to grow. The most important thing to remember with splitting plants is that your garden tools must be sterilized with alcohol first. You can spread disease and pests from one plant to another if you don’t keep your tools clean.

When Do I Start Mowing My Lawn?

Posted March 1, 2021

Spring is coming and your lawn is getting ready to wake up from the long winter. But when is the best time to start mowing your lawn? The best time to mow your lawn is in early spring after the risk of frost has passed. You don’t want to shock your grass’s new growth by cutting too quickly.

Once you’re sure the risk of frost has passed, before you mow, it’s important to prepare your lawn for the season. Applying a weed and feed fertilizer as part of your lawn care is a good idea before any mowing happens. Just remember to wait until after April 1, as it is illegal in Nassau and Suffolk counties to apply fertilizer before then.

Once it’s warmed up, you’ve fed and put down weed control, and your lawn has started growing in earnest, it’s time to get your mower ready. When the grass has grown at least two inches tall it should be safe to cut. This helps to protect the roots. Make sure your blade is sharpened and adjusted so that you’re never cutting more than a third of its length in any single cutting. This will help the lawn grow lush and strong. Depending on your type of grass, as a rule of thumb, you should let the lawn reach 2–3” in length.

To help return nutrients to your lawn it’s another good idea to leave some of the clippings where they fall so that they can decompose and release nitrogen.

Finally, don’t water your “new” lawn right away. Wait until the heat arrives to wilt the lawn a bit. This will tell the roots to grow deeper which will help them to survive the heat later in the summer.

January and February Gardening Tasks

Posted February 1, 2021

Yes, it’s cold and often grey outside, but that doesn’t mean your garden chores are done for the season! Believe it or not, your garden is still a living and growing thing all through winter. Now that the days are growing longer you’ll have more time to get all of your indoor and outdoor gardening chores done.

January and February are the months to consider doing a winter prune on your deciduous shrubs and fruit trees, before the buds pop. Trim out anything dead, diseased, or damaged. This will be easier to see now before there are any leaves on the branches. Trees and shrubs left unpruned may have fewer blooms and less growth come spring. Prune roses as well and they’ll reward you with a riot of blooms.

It’s also a good time for planting early spring bulbs! Yes, it’s true, if you can work the soil it’s not too late to plant spring-flowering plants such as Crocus, Hyacinths, Tulips, Daffodils and more. For summer bulbs you’ll want to take a look at them and make sure none of them are rotted or collapsed. This indicates either disease or a bug infestation, so you’ll want to get rid of those before it spreads to your healthy bulbs.

Examine your perennial plants for frost heaves. This happens when the roots get exposed due to the freezing and thawing cycles of the ground. If you find them make sure the roots are properly buried and consider adding some mulch over the area to prevent future heaves.

January and February are a good time to plant bare-root hedges, which are cheaper than pot-grown. These should become available toward the end of February, so think about digging your holes now when the ground is softer and easier to work with.

Sweet Pea is one of the great early crops to start from seed packets at this time. Early January is the best time to do that. Make sure they are in a frost-free area, and they’ll be ready for planting in March or April!

Turn the soil in your vegetable garden. The weather over the next few months will help to break it down and get it ready for planting in spring once the cold weather passes.

Planning a Spring Garden

Posted January 18, 2021

Planning a Spring Garden

Planning a spring garden is a great way to help you get through the dreary winter months. It may be too cold to start gardening, but there are still quite a few things you can do to make your life easier in the early spring.

Before you start planning there are still a couple of outdoor tasks to take care of, so make sure you get to those first.

Late fall and early winter are the perfect time to remove and discard diseased or bug-eaten plants from garden beds. Don’t toss them in the composting bin, however, as that can spread disease to plants the following season.

Check and see if any plant roots are growing where they shouldn’t be, such as into your septic field or your foundation. Some roots can even buckle your driveway. Make a note of these and have them taken care of asap.

Early winter is a good time to mulch overwintering plants and vegetables like carrots. Cleaning and storing your garden tools properly is also important so you have them ready for next year.

It’s always a good idea to check your grow zone to help you determine not only what the best plants are for your area, but also when to begin germinating seeds, and how long the plants growing season will be.

Start creating a garden plan. Sketch out your garden area and plan where you’re going to put your vegetables, herbs, and flowers. Remember to leave room for the plants when they reach adult size so your garden isn’t too crowded!

Break out the seed catalogs. Ordering seeds from reputable companies will mean you get high-quality seeds with a high germination rate. Read up on germination times for each plant so you’ll know the perfect time to start indoor germination. Seed catalogs often contain gardening tips to get the most out of the seeds you order, so make a note of those.

Check out your local garden center and pick up soil and extra mulch now, when it is often cheaper than in springtime.

Decide where you’ll want to keep your summer flowers. These are usually going to be planted in pots, so a sunny patio or deck is a perfect home for these plants. You may also want to start shopping for decorative containers for these now, so you’re ready to go once they’re available.

Finally, determine your goals for your entire yard overall. What do you want to get out of your yard? Are you looking to start a large landscaping project such as installing pathways, water features, and arbors, or do you just want to maintain your vegetable garden? Do you want to create a place for activities, or a calm Zen-like retreat? Working out your goals now will make it easier to create a realistic plan to execute come spring.

By taking some time to do these things now you’ll be ready to get out there and garden the moment the ground thaws and the weather warms. Remember, a little planning can go a long way, so the sooner you start the more time you’ll have!

Cutting Decorative Grasses

Posted December 21, 2020

Ornamental grasses are one of the first plants to greet us come spring. You’ll see little green shoots coming up from the cut-off crowns and know that spring is finally really here. Decorative grasses can be warm season, cool season, or evergreen grasses. Warm season and cool season grasses are sometimes called “deciduous grasses”, meaning that the foliage of these types of grasses turn brown in the fall but tend to remain standing. These grasses when left as they are can provide winter interest to a landscape, particularly when they are in the background.

While you can leave these grasses without care all year, they will tend to look more attractive if you cut back ornamental grasses in the forefront either in late fall or early spring.

Cutting these grasses may seem like a difficult task, especially the kind with razor-edged leaves, but it doesn’t have to be. To cut back the grass, first, take twine or string and wrap it around the grass creating a sheaf. This will be easier to manage and cut through. Then, take your hedge shears—or for an easier job, a hedge trimmer or power hedger—and cut the grass about 4–6 inches above the crown of the plant. You want to protect the crown because it helps to insulate the roots through the winter, so don’t cut the grass at ground level.

Once you’ve cut your grass plants down you’ll want to take the dead material and place it on the compost pile. Dead grass is a great way to get nitrogen into the soil, so it’ll help your compost pile do its job. If you happen to have a shredder you can also run the grass through it and make a great mulch for your other plants!

Remember, ornamental grasses grow not only tall but wide as well. Eventually, in addition to cutting them down, you may also need to split them so they stay manageable in your landscape layout. We’ll cover how to split grasses in a future post! In the meantime, find that string and get going on your trimming!

How to Attract Butterflies

Posted September 8, 2020

One of the most welcome sights in the garden is when a butterfly comes to visit. When a whole swarm of them comes, it’s like magic. So how can you be sure to get more of these lovely visitors? By planting a butterfly garden! A butterfly garden, or pollinator garden, is planted specifically to lure beneficial insects who pollinate your flowering plants.

Here on Long Island, we have many butterfly species that you might see in your garden. Monarch butterflies, black swallowtail, and the painted lady just to name a few. To lure adult butterflies you not only need nectar plants for them to eat, but you also need to plant native plants that are food for butterfly caterpillars.

In early spring butterflies arrive and begin to lay their eggs on native plants that will feed their young. These eggs hatch into caterpillars. Once the caterpillars eat their fill they will build a cocoon. They’ll stay inside the cocoon until they emerge sometime later as an adult butterfly. Your garden should provide for every stage of the lifecycle. Plants like butterfly bushes (which are considered an invasive plant in some states), coneflower, sage, and lantanas are great at feeding adult butterflies, while milkweed, aster, parsley, and violets are the favorite foods of caterpillars.

Most plants that attract butterflies grow in full sun, so plan ahead before planting your butterfly garden. While some birds and butterflies can get along, most birds love butterflies for a snack. When laying out your garden place bird feeders well away from your butterfly garden, as well as any birdhouses.

In addition to knowing what plants to grow, you need to provide water, shelter, and sun. A birdbath or water feature is the perfect way to ensure that your winged friends have access to water to drink. Trees and shrubs make for the best butterfly houses. They provide branches to roost on at night and a place to hide from predators. Many trees and shrubs are also excellent caterpillar food.

Finally, the sun. Butterflies are cold-blooded insects and they need the sun to warm themselves up each morning. Make sure that some sun reaches either open ground, stones, or even pavement early in the morning so that it warms up and will be attractive to butterflies.

If you do a little bit of advanced planning and make sure to offer everything butterflies need to thrive you’ll lure them into your garden year after year.

The Best Early Spring Flowers

Posted April 6, 2020

We’ve just entered early spring and while it’s still pretty chilly most days a lot of us have turned our thoughts to spring gardening and the best spring flowers to plant to brighten up the yard. Flowers bloom at different times, so in this blog, we’ll cover some of the best plants for the early spring season.

The location of your garden bed will determine the best types of plants to place there. Do you have full sun or part shade? Take note of that before going over the following list of spring-blooming plants.

Creeping phlox is a wonderful addition to any spring garden and does well in all types of soil, so long as they are in full sun to partial shade. They produce a cascade of pretty white flowers, pink flowers, or lavender flowers depending on the plants chosen. Creeping phlox will come back year after year and will spread. They’re perfect for walls and rock gardens.

Lenten roses, or hellebores, are tolerant of partial and full shade. They come in a wide variety of colors including purple, red, yellow, green, and blue and are one of the more popular blooming perennials. They are relatively drought tolerant once established.

Daffodils, Hyacinths, Tulips, and Crocus are great spring bulbs to plant on the first day of spring. If you are looking for plants that have brightly colored flowers and are early to bloom they can’t be beaten. As a bonus, their uniquely shaped flowers attract bees and hummingbirds to your early spring garden.

Have a damp area to fill? Try the primrose. It comes in a variety of colors and is a wonderful early bloomer.

By planting these gorgeous bloomers your garden bed will be a riot of color and a welcome change from the drab winter weather.

Spring Lawn Care and Pre-Emergent Herbicide

Posted March 2, 2020

Early spring, before the warm season really starts, is a good time to do a special kind of herbicide application known as a pre-emergent herbicide. Pre-emergent herbicide applications help to eliminate weeds before they can grow. Some of the common summer grassy weeds that this treatment can prevent are crabgrass, foxtail, goosegrass, and sandbur.

Once the soil temperature rises it will be the perfect time to apply a weed preventer. The correct temperature means that it should be 55 or above for at least 2 days. Usually, this is at some point between March and April.

For most granules or liquids are the two main methods used to apply pre and post-emergent herbicides. It is vital that the active ingredient reaches into the soil, so if you are using granules you’ll need to water them in. If you’re using a liquid, it will seep in on its own.

It is important to make sure you’re applying pre-emergents before the growing season because once weeds—such as crabgrass, or broadleaf weeds like dandelions, clover, ragweed, and carpetweed—are visible it’s too late and you’ll have to use different treatments such as a post-emergent herbicide weed killer. When using a post-emergent weed killer be careful during application because lawns and decorative plants can be burned or killed by these chemicals.

Apply pre-emergent herbicides in both late summer to early fall as well as early spring because this is when most weeds bloom. These pesticides have an active ingredient which does not stop weed seeds from germinating, but instead keep them from sprouting. This means that the application is best done just when the seeds germinate. This usually happens twice a year. For the fall application wait until temperatures drop to the mid-70’s for three to five days in a row. For some weeds, such as annual bluegrass, multiple applications over consecutive years may be necessary to achieve the level of control you’re looking for.

Pre-emergent herbicide applications will not last through consecutive seasons so it is necessary to apply them each year, twice a year, to get the weed control you want for your lawn.

Blog

Prepare Your Garden for Spring

When Do I Start Mowing My Lawn?

January and February Gardening Tasks

Planning a Spring Garden

Cutting Decorative Grasses

How to Attract Butterflies

The Best Early Spring Flowers

Spring Lawn Care and Pre-Emergent Herbicide

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