NOW THAT SPRING IS HERE, IT’S TIME FOR:

Planting

• New lawns can be started this month. Sod can be planted at any time, but wait until the soil has warmed up enough to plant Bermuda seed.
• Warm season vegetables including beans, tomatoes, corn, squash, cucumbers, melons, and peppers 2 weeks after the last freeze. Summer vegetables, including okra, eggplant, southern peas 4 weeks after the last freeze.
• Warm season annuals including begonias, impatiens, zinnias, marigolds, cosmos, celosia, 2 weeks after the last freeze. Tropical annual color plants, including hibiscus, pentas, fire bush, copper plant, purslane, moss rose, purple fountain grass, caladiums, lantanas, 4 weeks after the last freeze.
• Groundcovers into well-prepared soil to take advantage of the burst of new spring growth.
• Herbs into flowerbeds, vegetable gardens, and patio containers. Many herbs are attractive as well as edible.
• Trees and shrubs are available in profusion this month. Transport them home carefully, protecting them from highway winds, the plant them immediately. Hand water them regularly during the first summer.

Pruning

• Climbing roses, also antique roses that only bloom in spring, following flowering to remove weak growth and reshape plants.
• Spring flowering shrubs and vines to reshape immediately after they finish blooming.
• Low hanging limbs from shade trees to allow sunlight to reach grass beneath the canopy.
• Tropicals, such as hibiscus, that have grown lanky over winter indoors can be trimmed back now.

Fertilize

• All lawn grasses should be fed this month. Use high-quality nitrogen or all-nitrogen plant food.
• Container gardens. Use complete-and-balanced, water-soluble fertilizer such as 20-20-20 with trace elements. Apply a diluted solution with each watering.
• Roses monthly with specialty rose food.
• Use iron additive with sulfur soil acidifier to correct iron chlorosis (yellow leaves with dark green veins) Keep iron products off masonry, painted surfaces that could be stained.

Be On the Lookout

• Cankerworms strip new leaves from trees. Larvae will hang by very thin threads from trees. Bacillus thuringiensis biological worm spray is the best control.
• Cabbage loopers with the same B. T. spray or dust.
• Snails, slugs, pill bugs devour tender new stem, leaf growth, apply dust or specialty bait.
• Leaf rollers tie leaves of cannas, sweetgums, redbuds, pyracanthas, and others together. Apply systemic insecticide for ongoing protection before problems become serious.
• Thrips cause roses and other double flowers to fail to open, turn brown around petals edges. Systemic insecticide to control.
• Aphids on brand new growth of daylilies, tomatoes, roses and a host of other plants. General-purpose insecticide will eliminate.
• Fire ants. Treat with wide area baits and individual mound treatments or hire pest control professional who can apply the new yearlong product.
• Fleas. Treat with broad-spectrum landscape insecticide. Apply preventive from the vet to the pet’s neck.
• Roses for black spot and mildew. Use labeled fungicide weekly into the summer.
• Powdery mildew on new growth of crape myrtles, zinnias, euonymus. Treat with approved fungicide or spray with soapy water.
• Maroon colored freckles on the left of red tip photinias, Indian hawthorns suggest fungal leaf spot. Treat with approved fungicide, but be prepared to replace plants. This disease is an epidemic.
• Broadleaf weed killer to eliminate existing clover, dandelions, dichondra, wild violets, and poison ivy.