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Time to get your yard back into shape
What are those florescent pink flowering trees buried deep in the woods that are equally comfortable guarding the corners of suburban homes? Or the cheerful yellow wild flowering shrubs dominating woods’ edge? Ever wonder about the dainty pink or white flowering trees keeping those florescent guys company?
This fantastic ornamental loves the protected northern and eastern sites of homes and has a marvelous biblical connection. E-mail me if you care to hear the story of the blood-stained petals and crown of thorns. (Answers: redbuds, forsthia, dogwoods). Pears, crabapples and serviceberry, my determined favorite, all explode this time of year and may have challenged your above responses.
BUZZ KILL
I hate to be a downer, especially fresh off our bronzed Spring Break perspectives, but someone has to bring reality into perspective. You probably already have this on your “to do” list, but it’s time to cut last years spent perennials and ornamental grasses to the ground. Yep, all the way to the ground. Fear not. They will return clean and perky, just like you after last week’s respite.
Here are the next few sweat producers to manage, in this order: Start at the top and clean the gutters, pick up the spent perennials and grasses you just cut back, prune shrub roses back to green stem growth, and then finish cleaning the beds of debris and leaves. To reduce maintenance, carefully spread a granular pre-emergent weed control and all-purpose fertilizer in the beds. Azaleas, roses, hydrangeas and rhododendrons appreciate plant-specific love, but it’s not critical.
Phase two is tuff stuff if you have bloated bed lines. Nothing says perfection like a skillfully dug bed edge – think 4-6” deep at a 45-degree angle with smooth edges. Clumpy/jagged is tacky.
Now for the icing on the cake, mulch. A total of 3-4” is plenty, including previous years accumulation. Much more invites problems, pests and some other “P” word that escapes me now. Don’t you love the smell of good mulch, especially if someone else has installed it? Spring into life! Spring into family and the out of doors, where healing begins and the magic of life really does come true.
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