There is lots to do in your gardens in April.
Start off the new gardening season with a few bend and stretch exercises every time before you start in the garden. I find skiing muscles have nothing to do with gardening muscles. Take it easy. There are a lot of gardening days before the next ski season.
If you can find them, buy and plant frost-resistant pansies early in the month for spring colour.
I have learned from the Guelph-educated agronomist at Mid-West Co-Op in Markdale that you should not spread 19-19-19 general purpose fertilizer over the snow on all your flower beds and shrub boarders, as I used to recommend.
You will lose the Nitrogen as it will melt away. So, after the snow has gone, and new leaves have not yet appeared on your plants, you should spread it just in your flower beds.
Organize your compost pile for the new season. Start a new one with the top foot or so of compost material from last year’s pile as a base.
As the weather warms and the ground dries, prune back perennials and ornamental grasses to one inch to two inches from the ground. Collect dead material, shred, if possible, and put it on your new pile.
Push any plants that the frost has heaved out of the ground back into place.
Prepare your garden beds for planting. Dig in compost, manure, and/or other organic material around each perennial plant. Remove weeds that have come through from last fall. When you have cleaned up the beds, add three to four inches to control weeds this summer.
Here’s an opportunity. Look over your garden to determine what plants are in the wrong place, have grown too big and need dividing, or that you have come to hate.
Remove winter rose protection. For Hybrid Teas, prune back to six inches or eight inches and apply dormant oil spray before the buds break.
Apply dormant oil spray to shrubs like Euonymus that may have suffered from scale last year. Do it before the buds break.
Prepare your vegetable garden with a good digging. Dig in compost and manure. Mid-month, plant the seeds of cool-weather vegetables like peas, spinach, lettuce, onions and beets. Plant seeds of frost-resistant annuals like larkspur, sweet peas and calendulas.
When you can’t see your footprints in the lawn, it’s dry enough to rake it vigorously to remove any thatch. Repair damage with weed-free topsoil. Add grass seed to bare spots and keep moist.
Fertilize your lawn with slow-release high-nitrogen fertilizer (the first of the three numbers on the bag). Slow-release urea costs more, but it’s worth it, as it should last until the fall.
Apply crabgrass pre-emergent herbicide to your lawn, if required.
When spring finally arrives, plant new trees, shrubs, perennials and biennials in your garden. No need to wait until the end of May for perennials and shrubs, that’s for annuals. Up here, June 1 is the date to safely plant frost-tender annuals. With a late frost forecast, cover annuals with a bedsheet at night.
Re-fill your pots and planters with compost. But first, put empty plastic bottles with tops on at the bottom of large pots. You will need less soil and they will be lighter and easier to move. Add slow-release plant food to the top four inches.
Start mowing your lawn only as needed. Keep it long to crowd out any weeds.
Save Saturday, May 24 for the St. George’s, Anglican Parish of the Blue Mountains Giant Annual Plant Sale on the church grounds at 166 Russell St. in Clarksburg.
They are projected to again have well over 1,000 high-quality perennials and shrubs to choose from, at very reasonable and competitive prices, plus free gardening advice from the 599 Garden Club plant experts.
The sale runs 8 a.m. to noon. Come early for best selection.
And finally, if there are any students out there who are interested in garden work after school this spring, as well as during the summer months, please get in touch now. There are lots of well-paid jobs available. Contact John Hethrington at [email protected].
John Hethrington, past president of Master Gardeners of Ontario doesn't leave it to April showers to bring May flowers. He'll be hard at work in his 20 different gardens.
