MENUThe growing season is almost upon us. It officially begins on Memorial Day, which is just over a month away. Many people are outside working on their landscapes much earlier.
Now is a good time to begin planting trees and shrubs, but I recommend waiting until Memorial Day to plant temperature sensitive plants. We could have a late frost or freeze that will wipe out all of your hard work. That doesn’t mean you can’t get everything ready during the next month, though.As soon as the soil is firm enough in your beds, you can remove any extra mulch you added for the winter. If the beds are slow to dry out, rake the mulch to the edges of the beds to let the soil beneath it dry. Then rake back just the summer thickness of mulch. Don’t be alarmed if you only have enough mulch for the summer depth. Some mulch may have decomposed over the winter or it may have simply sunk into the wet soil.When your lawn’s soil is dry enough to hold your weight, so you won’t leave footprints in the grass, then it’s safe to walk on and to prepare for the season. It may not be firm enough, or long enough, to mow yet. You can, however, fertilize, spread pre-emergent weed killer, overseed and pull weeds.You can save time by dragging a garbage bag or other container along as you do these tasks and pick up any trash you find along the way. That way, you won’t have to go on a walk around the yard just to pick up trash. If you picked up trash on nice winter days, you shouldn’t have much to pick up now.I don’t think spring cleanup ranks at the top of anyone’s list of favorite landscape jobs. Combining it with more pleasant jobs, as I’ve proposed above can make it more tolerable. If you’d rather just enjoy your landscape without doing any of the jobs above, we have landscape professionals who can do these and any other landscape maintenance job you’d like them to do.
