- 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.
- Spread a little lime or wood ashes around delphiniums and peonies
- Divide late-summer or autumn-flowering perennials.
- Trim climbing roses and attach securely to fences or trellises.
- Scatter crushed eggshells in a thick ring around roses to deter slugs.
- Prune suckers from fruit trees now before they become established.
- 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.
- Prune late-flowering shrubs, evergreens, and hedges.
- 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
- It’s still not too late to fertilize your trees and shrubs. Use a ‘Rhododendron’ or an ‘Evergreen’ type of plant food to feed evergreens and acid loving plants like rhododendrons, camellias, azaleas, and junipers, etc. Use an all-purpose garden fertilizer (10-10-10) to feed roses, deciduous shrubs and trees. Be sure to water the fertilizer in thoroughly after it is applied.
- Carrots, lettuce, potatoes, corn, beans, peas and most popular vegetables (with the exception of the warmer weather crops) can be seeded or planted into the vegetable garden at any time
now. - Wait until mid to late May before planting the warmer weather crops like tomatoes, squash, cucumber, pumpkins and peppers.
- Check to see if your house plants are rootbound. Water them thoroughly and carefully remove them from their pots. If the roots have compacted around the outside of the rootball, it is time to repot.
The Ferda's Garden Center Website
