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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Transplant - - Transplanting Trees and Shrubs

In the North, there's not much work to do outside now. It's a good thing: I don't like working outside when I'm freezing! But on the occasional warm day Mother Nature grants us in November, there are a few tasks worth doing, including planting trees.

Transplanting trees and shrubs appears an easy task -- deceptively so! Many transplants die due to improper transplanting. But if you're about to give a facelift to a landscape design that has been neglected for years, then you will need to move existing plant matter, whether for relocation or for disposal. If you opt for shrub and tree transplanting, you must take steps to improve the likelihood of survival.

Difficulty: Average

Time Required: 2 Hours

Here's How:

1. Location, location, location! Prior to transplanting, determine whether the tree or shrub likes sun or shade, and what its spacing and watering requirements are. For instance, don't locate a plant that craves water next to one that prefers dry conditions: their needs will be incompatible.
2. Dig the new hole before you dig up the tree or shrub. Once you dig up the plant, the longer its roots go without a home, the lower your chances for successful transplanting.
3. Estimate the width and depth of the rootball by doing a bit of exploratory digging around the plant. The width of the new hole should be twice that of the rootball. The depth should be kept a bit shallower, to avoid puddling and consequent rotting.
4. When you reach the bottom of the new hole, resist the temptation to break up the soil beneath. You would think that this would help the tree or shrub, allowing its roots to penetrate deeper. Instead, it could cause the tree or shrub to sink, inviting rot.
5. Dig out the tree or shrub selected for transplanting. But don't start digging right at the base of a mature tree or shrub. Rather, start digging about 3' out from the base, all along the perimeter. Get a feel for where the main mass of roots lies. Also begin to judge what the weight will be of plant + roots + soil clinging to roots. You may need someone to help lift it!
6. The idea is to keep as much of the rootball (roots + soil) intact as possible. But the larger the plant is, the chances of getting anything close to the entire rootball will diminish -- and you wouldn't be able to carry it anyhow! Usually you will have to cut through some roots on a mature plant (either with a sharp shovel or with pruners -- make a good, clean cut).
7. Once you've removed enough soil from around the sides of the plant, you'll eventually be able to slip your shovel under it and begin to loosen the plant's grip on the soil below it. After it's loose, spread a tarp on the ground nearby and gently move the tree or shrub onto the tarp.
8. Using the tarp as a transporting medium, drag the tree or shrub over to the new hole (dug in steps 1-4). Gently slide it into the hole, and get it straight. Shovel the excavated soil back into the hole. Tamp this soil down firmly and water it as you go, to eliminate air pockets. The formation of air pockets could cause the tree or shrub to shift after transplanting.
9. Mound up the soil in a ring around the newly transplanted tree or shrub, forming a berm that will catch water like a basin. This will help you achieve your main objective from here on out -- keeping the new transplant's roots well watered, until it becomes established.
10. Spread a 3" layer of landscape mulch around the new transplant. But keep it a few inches away from the base of the tree or shrub, to promote air circulation and so as not to invite rodents from nibbling on the trunk. Rodents become emboldened by the cover mulch provides.
11. Then water, water, water. The first summer would be a difficult one for the tree or shrub to weather, unless it gets plenty of water. Watering is as essential as anything to success in shrub and tree transplanting.

Tips:

1. When should you conduct your shrub and tree transplanting? For most trees and shrubs late winter or early spring are the best times for transplanting. Fall would be the second best time. In summer it's not advisable (too hot). In the dead of winter it's almost impossible (in the North) -- unless you've done all your digging ahead of time (before the ground freezes).
2. The time given for this transplanting project is 2 hours. However, that will depend greatly on the circumstances. To dig a mature tree or shrub out of rocky soil (especially in cramped quarters) is back-breaking work. How long it takes you will largely depend on your health and on how much you're willing to push yourself.
3. Above, I have discussed shrub and tree transplanting that involves digging, moving and re-planting a rootball. This is how you would normally perform shrub and tree transplanting using stock on your own property. However, when you buy plants from nurseries to plant in your yard, there will be some differences in the operation. Some nursery plants are balled and burlapped (see picture above). Others are sold bare-root, the transplanting of which I discuss in my article on growing roses.
4. One technique sometimes used to facilitate transplanting trees or shrubs of significant size is root pruning.

What You Need:

• Pointed Shovel
• Tarps
• Measuring Tape
• Pruners
• Garden Hose
• Mulch

David Beaulieu
Landscaping Guide              Landscape Vision loves all the great information David provides!