Gardening Jobs for May

• Weed perennial beds with special care to avoid pulling up precious self-sown seedlings. When you can tell for sure what's what, pull the weeds and top-dress the plants with compost or rich soil -- just before a rain, if possible.
• Provide support for flowers that need it before they start to fall over. Try twiggy prunings or pea stakes for sweet peas and ramblers. Put Grow-thru rings in place for bushier plants such as peonies, balloon flower, and globe thistle.
• Spread a little lime or wood ashes around delphiniums and peonies.
• Divide late-summer or autumn-flowering perennials. If necessary, go after phlox and artemisia with a sharp spade or even an ax. If delphiniums need to be divided, remove and replant the new little plants growing around the outside of the clump. Discard the hard old heart.
• Trim climbing roses and attach securely to fences or trellises.
• Scatter crushed eggshells in a thick ring around roses to deter slugs.
• Sow annual poppies and baby's breath in borders for midsummer bloom by scattering them between the other plants, covering with fine soil, and tamping down gently.
• Prune suckers from fruit trees now before they become established.
• Melons often benefit from supplemental warming, such as that provided by growing under plastic. Wait until the transplanted seedlings are established, as they cannot take up moisture very well at first and can easily get dehydrated.
• Plant above ground crops in the light of the moon.
• Thin beets and lettuce and use the tiny thinning to fill in spaces in the row or to start additional plantings elsewhere.
• For a crop in two years, plant year-old asparagus roots about eight inches deep in trenches lined with rich compost. Fan out the roots and space two feet apart. Cover gently with good soil.
• When potato plants come through the soil, hill them up by pulling several inches of soil around their stems with a hoe to encourage deep roots and keep young potatoes from exposure to light.
• Mulch between rows and keep the garden weeded to give emerging seedlings a fair chance.
• Get that herb garden started by putting in plants. If you include mint, plant it in a large plastic tub (the kind drywall joint compound or birdseed comes in) with its bottom removed. This will help keep it from invading the rest of the garden.
• An established asparagus bed will be ready to harvest. Patrol daily and select spears of about the same size (which will require the same cooking time). If you had trouble locating those first spears, mark the bed with stakes so that you can find them next year.
• Watch for signs of drought in plants transplanted from containers. Apply water (not much, but often) close to each plant's stem, where it will percolate down to the root ball. The larger the plant, the longer the recovery period, and the more diligently you need to water. Poke a pointed metal rod into the soil above the root ball. If the rod doesn't penetrate easily, the soil is too dry. If it moves around and feels squishy, the soil is too wet.
• Moles generally come calling this month. They're searching for mates and also grubs in your lawn. To get rid of the grubs, apply milky spore disease (Bacillus popilliae or Bacillis lentimorbus), a dust you can buy at your local garden center. Or try a new product called Mole-Med, which has castor oil as its active ingredient. Moles don't like the taste of this any more than you do.
• Prune late-flowering shrubs, evergreens, and hedges.
• Don't be in a rush to plant tomato, eggplant, pepper, and other heat-loving seedlings if you live where late-May frosts are common. Old-timers will surely wait until after Memorial Day.
• Don't cut the leaves off spent spring-flowering bulbs. Dying and yellowing foliage may look unsightly, but leave it in place (and don't tie it up) to help the bulbs ripen for next year's show.
• If you have crocuses growing in your lawn, don't mow until their leaves have died down.
• Don't force clematis to climb a lamppost or fan trellis. Instead, give it a chance to climb trees, scramble over shrubs, or romp over the ground.

May jobs from our friends at The Old Farmers Almanac


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Gardening Jobs for April

From our friends at The Farmers Almanac

• Start coleus cuttings now to plant outdoors in the garden by early June. These colorful plants are enjoying a revival as fine accents to annual and perennial borders.
• Rake or remove mulches from all flower beds.
• Plant rosebushes. They often do best if planted before growth starts and buds swell. And if you want to increase their fragrance, surround them with parsley.
• Scatter annual poppy seeds in your flower garden and let them grow where they will. They don't like to be transplanted.
• Broadcast lime, wood ashes, or a mixture of the two over alkaline-loving perennials such as delphiniums and dianthus. Bring color outdoors to patios, porches, and even the garden with pansy plants, which don't mind cold nights. To encourage constant flowering, routinely remove spent blossoms and keep them from getting bone-dry.
• Sow sweet peas as soon as the soil can be worked. Nick the seeds with a nail file and plant them five inches deep, but cover them with only about three inches of soil. Hoe more soil up around them as they grow.
• Plant lilies-of-the-valley, violets, and garden lilies. Divide summer- and fall-blooming perennials, including delphiniums, irises, chrysanthemums, daisies, and phlox.
• Although we think of this as a rainy month, it can fool us. Keep transplanted flowers well watered during dry spells.
• When danger of frost has passed, uncover strawberry beds and keep them well watered.
• Plant blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, and fruit trees.
• Start seeds indoors for heat-loving crops such as eggplant, tomatoes, and squash.
• To determine whether your garden soil is ready for seeds, grab a good handful of it. If you can form it into a ball, the soil is too wet. If it crumbles through your fingers and reminds you of chocolate cake, it's ready for planting.
• If the soil is ready, give it a good stirring and let it sit for several days. Then top-dress it with compost or well-rotted manure and plant beets, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, radishes, parsnips, lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, and turnips.
• If you got your peas in last month, be sure to give them a good fence for support, made of chicken wire, twine, or stubby branches that are at least three feet tall. Otherwise, plant them this month as soon as you can.
• Scatter spinach or lettuce seeds around emerging bulb foliage to make wise use of your garden space, and have a leafy green crop at the ready to cover the bare spots left by deadheaded spring flowers.

 

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Gardening Job for December

Any tools not likely to be used during the winter should be cleaned, and any parts likely to rust should be oiled.

This is a good time to start pruning dead and dangerous limbs from trees. These should be burned in case they harbor insects and disease. Apply tree paint to the wounds made in sawing off limbs.

Most plants and shrubs winter-kill because of alternate freezing and thawing, so it is a good idea to bank them up with snow.

Look over the stored vegetables frequently and remove decaying specimens.

To protect tender perennials from harsh winter weather, build a wooden box with no top or bottom. Place it over the plants after the ground has frozen and fill with leaves.

Cover your compost pile to prevent rains and snows from leaching out nutrients.

If iris foliage is hit with heavy frost, remove and destroy it to eliminate borer eggs.

Check the "bones" of your garden or landscape for visual appeal. Hedges, stone walls, and pathways all contribute to the underlying structure. Make a note of what you will change in the spring.

If you're in an area with snow, go out and gently shake the snow from evergreens after heavy snowfalls; frozen wood is brittle. Remove any broken limbs with a sharp saw.

Make holiday wreaths from grapevines, greens, and dry seedpods.

As houseplants are growing more slowly in December light, cut down on watering by half until active growth resumes. Hold off on fertilizing as well.

Group houseplants near each other to form a support group to cope with the low humidity of most winter homes.

Popular Plants, Ideas for Winter Landscapes

What makes a plant popular for winter landscapes in the snowy regions of the globe? Are conifers the sole contestants? Which landscaping plants are automatically disqualified? Which shrubs are best for attracting wild birds? Answering such questions should help generate landscaping ideas for dealing with that Scrooge of the seasonal landscapes, horticulturally speaking -- the winter landscape. Our goal is to turn a drab winter landscape into a winter scene worth painting!
While evergreen shrubs and conifer trees undeniably add visual interest to winter landscapes, so do many other plants, such as red osier dogwoods. About the only plants that are disqualified right at the outset are those that lack any appreciable height: no matter how pretty a plant may be, it will add no visual interest to the winter landscape if it lies buried all winter, dwarfed by a blanket of snow. Based on this premise, let's explore ideas to enhance the winter landscape. And let's keep in mind all the while the fact that many landscaping enthusiasts are also bird watchers; so that a plant's ability to attract wild birds will be a consideration.
A winning plant for winter landscapes will have one or more of the following characteristics:

• Contains colorful berries that attract birds for bird watching
• Readily catches snow in its branches
• Exhibits a delicate structure
• Is clad in a bark that is colorful or that has an unusual texture
• Bears evergreen foliage
• Has an interesting branching pattern

Let's look at some popular plants exhibiting these characteristics. I'll let conifers take a back seat; their value to winter landscapes goes without saying, so I'm limiting their representation to two entries here. The following is a list of 10 popular plants for adding visual interest in winter:

1. Christmas holly shrubs
2. red twig dogwood or red osier dogwood
3. plume grass
4. bayberry
5. cranberrybush viburnum
6. winterberry holly
7. birch trees
8. yew shrubs
9. Canadian hemlocks
10. Viking black chokeberry

Evergreen holly is popular due to its striking, year-round foliage and bright berries that attract many bird species. Sprigs of cut holly have long been used in winter holiday decorations. Many evergreen hollies are not hardy enough for far Northern climes, but two of the hardier varieties are:

• China holly (Ilex meserveae), a rounded holly, 8' high by 8' wide, that is also drought tolerant, and
• compact inkberry holly (Ilex glabra 'Compacta'), which has a dark green foliage that resembles that of boxwood shrubs. Its berry is black, not the usual red that we associate with hollies. It reaches a height of 3'-6', and spreads out 3'-5'.

Red osier dogwood (Cornus sericea 'Allemans') is another extremely hardy plant (zones 3-8). The May flowering of red osier dogwoods yields white blooms that are followed by white fruit. But red osier dogwood makes this list because of its bark, which ranges in color from red to burgundy. Reaching a height of 6'-10', the spread of red osier dogwoods is 5'-10'. A patch of fiery red osier dogwood against a backdrop of pristine snow makes for an unforgettable winter scene.
No winter landscape should be without a tall perennial grass. These ornamental grasses, with their tall, thin shafts and fluffy coiffures, exhibit a delicate structure that lends a touch of charm to the harsh winter landscape. Plume grass (Erianthus ravennae) can be grown in zones 4-9. It grows 8'-11' (its clump has a spread of 3'-4').
Bayberry (Myrica pensylvanica) is a shrub with a spreading habit (4'-6' X 4'-6'), grown in zones 2-8 (see photo at right). Its glossy, aromatic foliage complements its waxy, gray fruit. In fact, these unusual berries are widely used to scent candles -- if you can get to the berries before the birds do, that is. The shrub is also drought tolerant. The birds may like bayberry, but the deer don't, as it's one of the deer-resistant plants.
Compact American cranberrybush viburnum (Viburnum trilobum 'Compactum') yields masses of red berries that serve as a source of food for birds on the winter landscape. A rounded shrub, it bears white flowers in May and June that are followed by red fruit. As a bonus, the shrub offers foliage ranging from red to purple in fall. American cranberrybush viburnum is hardy to zone 2. It grows 4'-5' high, with a spread of 3'-4'.

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Landscape vision enjoys all the informative info provided by David Beaulieu