Everything in its season. Even though I have been waiting to get started working outdoors there are sometimes when I realize that I've forgotten to get something started on time. So I've taken this opportunity to review some of the key activities that I do, or should do, to manage my landscape over the year.
WINTER
Planning
As the growing season winds down, winter is a good time to reflect on the past season and decide what to do in the coming year. Every year I sketch out a plan for the vegetable garden so that I can keep track of what I'm planting and when. I can refer back to these from previous years to keep track of crop rotation. This way I can ensure that I don't keep planting tomatoes in the same place, for example.
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| This was my 2024 garden plan. I made notations about planting dates, particularly for the corn where I staggered planting dates over 6 weeks. |
Seed Starting
If you are planning on growing plants from seed, particularly native species, many of these require a pretreatment in order to germinate. In many cases this is accomplished by storing the seed under moist, but not wet, conditions in the refrigerator for 30 to 60 days. This is referred to as cold-moist stratification. It is meant to simulated conditions that a seed would experience in the wild. Prairie Moon Nursery has a Germination Guide for all of the seeds that they sell.
Winter sowing is another method that is gaining popularity. This is essentially direct sowing of the seed in a potting mix early in winter and leaving these containers outside to experience near natural conditions and break dormancy. Some advantages of this method are that the seed is already in soil so that they will begin growing when they are ready and you don't need to mess with grow lights and temperatures after you sow your moist-stratified seed. See this post on Winter sowing I did a while back.
Direct sowing in the garden is also an option but I've had poor luck with this since it requires a perfectly prepared seed bed and protection of predators (birds) to get a good level of germination success.
Big Projects
If you are thinking of having work done winter is that time to get with landscape professionals. They will have more time to work with you on designing and planning your work than if you wait until the spring.
Invasive Species Management
Winter is also a good time to eliminate many invasive species from your landscape. In my previous blog post I listed some of the invasive species that could be addressed in the colder months. These are mostly woody vines and shrubs. I've been making progress against garlic mustard and Japanese honeysuckle by doing spot treatments with glyphosate in late winter, when temperatures are above 40°F.
Soil Tests
Winter is a very good time for doing soil tests as long as the soils are workable and you can take a proper sample. By getting the results back before planting season begins you can make any adjustments well ahead of when plants go in the ground. Winter is a particularly good time for applying lime, if needed. Melting snow and wet weather help the lime to slowly infiltrate and do it job neutralizing excess acidity and increasing calcium levels. It may take 2 months for an application of lime to be effective. See this link to the University of Delaware's soil testing lab.
SPRING
Invasives
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| Forsythia and pussy willow (Salix discolor) blooming at the beginning of April 2023 |
March into early April presents a window of opportunity for treating lesser celindine, Ficaria verna. April is also when garlic mustard is putting on a growth spurt and producing flowering stems. This is a very good time to pull these plants as long as the soil is loose enough to allow removal a most of the roots. (If plants are actually in bloom the flowering parts need to be disposed of, otherwise even though they have been uprooted, they may still go to seed.)
Ticks
Another early spring activity on our wooded property is to put out 'tick tubes'. These are tubes with cotton balls treated with 5-7% permethrin, by weight. The idea is that white-footed mice collet these for use in their nests. The permethrin will kill any tick larvae present on the mice, thus reducing the spread of Lyme disease. I mark each location with a landscape marking flag so that I can check if any cotton was taken from that spot. I repeat the placement of tubes in late September hoping that the mice will take them into their nests over the winter. I make my own tubes, but they are also commercially available.
Pruning
Late-winter to early spring is the time to start pruning summer flowering shrubs and plants that bloom on new wood. For me this is mostly smooth hydrangeas (Hydrangea arborescens and cultivars). Spring blooming plants, like Azaleas, hollies, and big-leaf hydrangeas, should not be pruned until after they bloom, otherwise you will be removing flowering buds. Fruit bearing trees are usually pruned in the spring, however each species has it's own particular timing to get improved fruit yields. Apples, for instance are best pruned in late winter, in part to minimize infection of the cuts. Any broken, structurally compromised or diseased limbs should always be removed as soon as possible.
Berry bushes like blueberries and blackberries really benefit from early season pruning. To get improved fruits from wild blackberry I cut side branches back to 5-8 living buds in early March. Last year I did a post of some of the wild brambles I have here.
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| The four arrows indicate locations for pruning cuts on this wild blackberry. You can see that now, at the end of February, leaf buds are already swelling. |
Garden Clean-up
As we are learning more and more about how we can help nature flourish in our gardens the advise is that whenever possible delay cleaning up the garden debris from last season. Many pollinators and beneficial insects are overwintering in the fallen plant materials. I will refer you to two links for more information on the hows and whys of delayed clean up: Izel Plant Blog and Penn State Extension. In short if you can wait until early May, you will be doing a lot to help native bees and other pollinators. Exceptions to delayed clean-up include plant diseases that overwinter in the leaf litter and insect infestations.
No Mow May
No Mow May was started in England as a push to provide early season pollinators with flowers that are common in English lawns. Blindly adhering to a no-mow-May program in a country with so many diverse climates and types of lawns as the US is often inappropriate. To be useful, the lawn or property in question needs to have a population of plants with early blooming flowers that the pollinator population likes. Depending on the climate the appropriate time for suspending mowing could be as early as February or into the later part of May. If you have a monoculture of Kentucky blue grass there is little benefit to pollinators in skipping a month of mowing, there is just nothing of benefit there for them. If you have a diverse ‘lawn’ containing native weeds like violets, self-heal (Prunella vulgaris), fleabanes (Erigeron sp.), spring beauties (Claytonia virginica) and the like, then allowing those to come into bloom would have a positive effect. If you really need to mow, take the effort to mow around the blooming plants until they are done. Lawns can also be interplanted with spring bulbs. While not native, very early bulbs like Crocus, Chionodoxa and Scilla can add interest to an early spring lawn. These bulbs have usually completed their growth and blooming cycle by the time the need for mowing kicks in.
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| I have been allowing this patch of Philadelphia fleabane to develop without mowing. It reaches peak bloom in mid-May. I usually mow it down in early June after it sets some seed. When not in bloom plants survive as low-growing rosettes. |
My recent experience with letting the lawn grow out late April through May was an increase in ticks. We are surround by trees and woodland edge habitat which makes the tick problem worse due to the higher humidity environments. From what I've read ticks will not survive under low humidity conditions, so an open dry lawn should not be as much of a problem. This year I will maintain the edge habitats at a lower level and try to avoid the lawn flowers.
While there is the oft repeated advice to never cut more than one third of the length of the grass blade at a time, I rarely let that force me to cut the lawn before I’m ready. I can’t say that I have ever noticed a problem by occasionally letting the lawn get too long between cuts. In those cases when I do, the biggest problem is the long clippings left on top. A mulching mower can help deal with that. All these problems are magnified on the ‘perfect’ lawn, where any imperfection becomes blaringly obvious. In a diverse, multispecies lawn imperfections blend into the mosaic of plant colors and textures.
Plant the garden
If you are starting vegetable plants from seed you'll want to get them stared about 6 weeks before planting time. Read the individual seed packets for more precise instructions. Spring ripening crops like lettuce, spinach and peas can go in early. Summer crops like tomatoes and cucumbers go in no earlier than Mother's Day, but I often wait until late May for tomatoes, especially when it's a cold, damp spring.
Spring and Fall are the best times for planting perennials, shrubs and trees. Cooler temperatures and normally moister conditions help plants settle in before the stress of summer heat kicks in. Fall may be a bit better for trees since they will have longer for the roots to get established.
Even before planting in the garden soil, you can plant in containers. The soil in these warms faster in the spring and you can get a head start whether it be vegetables or flowers. I often plant seeds for spring crops like lettuce, Swiss chard and spinach in early April in pots on our deck that has a good Southern exposure.
Cutting back
Often referred to as the Chelsea chop wholesale pruning of many perennials is from mid-to late-spring. The name was coined from the Chelsea Flower Show in the UK which occurs in mid-spring each year. When timed properly this leads to more compact, bushier plants with more blooms. Cutting perennials back generally delays blooming by a couple of weeks, and gives shorter bushier plants. By cutting half of a mass of plants back at one time and the rest a couple of weeks later you can effectively increase the blooming time for that mass by a few weeks. You can also enhance the height differences in a mass back staggering the timing of the cuts or cutting some shorter than others. You should finish the cutting operations by the end of June at the latest to give plants a chance to reach maturity before the bloom season comes to an end.
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| The arrows indicate the two levels to which I cut back these masses of goldenrods and asters. This will also reduce plants flopping onto the pool deck. |
SUMMER
Pruning
Spring blooming shrubs can be pruned after they have dropped their flowers. Surprisingly Rhododendrons can take severe rejuvenation pruning and bounce back after a year or two. So if you have overgrown rhodies blocking views in front of a window you can cut them back to a few feet tall and they will put out new shoot along the remaining stems. Pruning can be done as need though the summer, but that chore should be wrapped up by the end of August to allow any new growth to harden off before cold weather sets in.
Maintain New Plantings
Any newly installed plants will need extra care, particularly water, their first year in the ground. Water as needed. If you have established plantings, particularly native species, in the right locations these can be allowed to go dormant when conditions are harsh. They will bounce back when temperatures moderate and or rainfall returns. The same can be said of a lawn. An established lawn with cool season grasses will want to go dormant in the heat of summer, this is natural. It will bounce back. As the saying goes: "Never teach a pig to sing, it's a waste of your time and it annoys the pig" (Robert Heinlein).
Control Invasive Species
Removal of invasive plants either manually or with judicious use of herbicide can continue through the summer. If you are pulling invasive plants be aware of any seed that are present or developing and bag these so as not to spread the seed to other areas.
Deadheading
If you want to get more blooms from annuals or perennials, deadheading spent blooms is the future. This guide from Garden Gate Magazine has a list of 50 perennials and whether and how to deadhead. Deadheading will reduce the amount of seed produced in the garden, so if providing food for wildlife is important you may want to refrain from deadheading, particularly toward the end of summer. Also leaving some seed heads in place can add interesting structure in the garden through the winter months.
Enjoy
Summer, particularly August, is when the landscape is peaking and there is actually less work to do. Enjoy it!
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| Coastal Maine Botanical Garden |
FALL
Planting
Fall is another good time to do new plantings. Weather is cooling and there is normally more rain. Mid-fall is usually a better time for planting trees, as there is less heat stress and root growth will continue as long as soil temperatures are in the the 40's.
Invasive Plants
Continue to remove invasive species, but as before, be aware of any seeds that are present. Fall is a particularly good time to do herbicide treatments on invasive trees like Tree of Heaven, Ailanthus altissima. At this time sap is flowing down to the roots and techniques like 'hack and squirt' are very effective at concentrating a small amount of herbicide where it will do the most 'good'.
Deer protection
Here in the Mid-Atlantic the end of October brings on deer rutting season. While deer are always browsing on plants, rutting season is extremely destructive to healthy,1-4 year-old trees and shrubs. Male deer rub there antlers on the trunks of young trees to remove velvet from their horns, stripping bark and flattening trees in the process. They also will get very aggressive in mating season and seem to destroy plants as a way of showing dominance. Welded wire fencing, plastic tubing and tree wraps are all helpful tools to reduce damage. These some of these measures should be removed in spring if they cause the tree trunk to overheat or restrict growth. Fencing, cages and repellent sprays are useful for discouraging feeding.
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| Here I have a 4" drain pipe spiraled around a sweet bay magnolia. Deer had severely rubbed the bark as high as the arrow. This was 5 years ago and the tree has recovered. |
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| Here I have used plastic fencing to protect the bark from rubbing. |
Ticks, Act 2
As the weather cools white-footed mice collect material for their winter nests. This is a time that I put out a second batch of tick tubes. Since I've marked each one with a colored marking flag I can check to see if any cotton remains from earlier in the year. If there is still cotton, it indicates that no mice gathered material from that location. In that case I will find another spot nearby that looks like better mouse habitat.
Lawn care/Clean-up
If you feel the need for fertilizing your lawn, fall is the best time for a single application of a slow release fertilizer. The nutrients are delivered slowly and are taken up and stored in the roots preparing the grass for regrowth in the spring. Rather that using fertilizer I prefer to mow any fallen leaves into the lawn using a mulching mower. Another option for fallen leaves is to move them into the garden or other area where they can serve as habitat for overwintering insects. See the information links under Spring clean-up, above. There are many reasons for putting off fall clean-ups; however, exceptions to delayed clean-up include plant diseases that overwinter in the leaf litter and insect infestations.
Review
Review what worked and what didn't. Write down some notes where you can find them again. You might think you'll remember, but there's a good chance you won't.
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