Spring Lawn Care Tips    As your lawn begins to wake up this spring, there are four things you need to do to get it started right. At the top of your list should be a spring lawn aeration. Aeration is one of the most important steps in maintaining a healthy lawn. The most effective aeration involves removing plugs or "cores" of soil from the lawn. Core aeration reduces soil compaction and allows air, water and nutrients to reach the root area of your grass. We do not recommend "dethatching" a lawn.     Once the lawn has been aerated, the next step is to ..read more

  When it comes to flowering plants for your garden, it’s hard to beat roses. They’re hardy, reliable, they live a long time and most varieties flower throughout the growing season. Roses are available in a range of sizes, forms, and colors, which means there’s a rose for every garden.      When we think of roses, it’s the hybrid tea variety that most often comes to mind. Hybrid tea roses represent an amazing pallet of color and fragrance, such as the rose pictured here: Henry Fonda.  Depend on hybrid tea roses to bloom consistently throughout the summe ..read more

Warm season bulbs will produce some of the most dramatic garden color with minimal effort. These bulbs are very versatile. You can tuck them among your perennials to create a fuller looking bed or create a special summer bulb garden. Summer blooming bulbs are ideal in containers and will liven up your porch or deck all season long.  Summer blooming bulbs include canna lilies, dahlias, Asiatic and Oriental lilies, gladiolus and tuberous begonias, as well as freezia, caladium, calla lilies, and sparaxis.     Canna lilies feature attractive green, bronze or variegated f ..read more

   Along with showers, April brings smiles from gardeners, because now’s the time to plant cool season crops. By way of explanation, there are two different types of vegetables: cool season and warm season.  Cool season crops include Arugula, Lettuce, Spinach, Chard, and Kale, among others.  Cool season crops will germinate in cold soil and mature in cooler weather and shorter periods of daylight, meaning they are perfect for planting in early spring. This means you can get an early start on your edible garden by planting cool-season crops as soon as the soil is workabl ..read more

  Crabgrass is a warm season annual weed. It appears in late spring and disappears after the first frost. It grows from seed deposited the previous season. These seeds will germinate once the soil temperatures reach 55°F to 60°F. Crabgrass and other weeds such as foxtails, cheat grass and annual bluegrass typically sprout in the spring, grow quickly, set seed and die out after the first fall frost. The seed lies dormant in your lawn and landscape until the next spring, then germinates when the soil is warm enough. Because they grow from seed, they can be controlled by applying a produ ..read more

 We’re fast approaching the Vernal Equinox, which means the days are getting longer, giving us the perfect opportunity to get the garden ready for the season ahead.   Start by cleaning up your vegetable and perennial beds. This includes removing any dead vegetation and debris. Insects and diseases can winter over, and you'll help reduce potential problems later by doing a good clean up now. The key is to proceed slowly because as you’re cleaning up, you’ll discover many perennials and bulbs are starting to show. The remains of last year’s garden acts as a mulch, p ..read more

      Caring for seedlings after germination includes providing the right conditions for optimal development. The three factors that will have the most influence on how well your seedlings grow and develop are light, water, and fertilizer.      Seedlings need a consistent source of the right light and most of the time the light coming through a bright, sunny window isn’t going to be enough for your seedlings. They will tend to stretch and get thin and spindly looking for light.       You have several choices when ..read more

      The health and quality of your soil has a direct effect on everything you grow in your garden. The key elements affecting our soils are physical structure, including the amount of clay content, the pH and soil fertility. Testing your garden soil on a regular basis is important and can be accomplished at home using soil test kits or soil samples can be sent to a testing lab for analysis.     If you decide to test your soil at home, it’s important to include a test that will measure the acid-alkaline balance, known as soil pH level. Soil pH af ..read more

   Late February to early March is a good time to check fruit and shade trees for any damage that may have occurred over the winter. This is also the right time to control insects that might be trying to winter over on tree trunks, limbs and on ornamental shrubs.       Take advantage of some of these warmer late winter days and walk through your garden, paying particular attention to the crabapple, apple, pear trees and other deciduous trees. At this point, you’re looking for broken branches or limbs, diseased branches, as well as branches and twigs ..read more

      Starting your warm weather crops such as tomato and vegetable seeds indoors has many advantages. You can get a head start on the growing season, you can choose from a wide range of varieties, and you can control the quality of your plants from seed to harvest.    When it comes to starting seeds indoors in the spring, knowing when to start is one of the most important elements. Begin by understanding the hardiness zone you garden in. Sometimes called growing zones, USDA zone hardiness maps are based on winter temperature averages over a thirty-year period. The int ..read more