Spring gardening

Just a reminder that now is time to start selective pruning. By selective I mean pruning dead branches, branches which are crossed and chaffing against each other. Oe thing that i hate to see is a Crape Myrtle, pruned back to a beautiful circle. In the industry this is called Crape murder due to the continual pruning in this manner causes stress in the pruned area.and causes a greater risk of splitting during a storm.

Hydrngeas: prune them back to 18-24 inches soon. Since they bloom on new growth you will be creating a ton of blooms for the summer. My 1year old grandiflora (the ones with the big blue to purple blooms) was pruned back to 12 inches last spring and it amazed the neighbors with the amount of blooms. soon I will prune it back to about 18 inches and just wait for thr show it will put on.

I’ve noticed some early weeds popping up in my yard, time for post-emergent. Remember to know what grass you have and to apply while the grass (and weeds) are wet, either by going out after a rain, early while there is a heavy dew present or finally if you have an irrigation system you could run it prior to applying. The science behind this is, the post emergent herbicide works by contact with the weeds. by applying while wet you give your application the best chance to work.