April Garden To-Do List for the Southeast

April play a whirlwind of activeness for plants , animate being , and gardeners likewise . It almost does n’t matter what you do in the garden , as long as you are out there doing it . The mild temperatures and Greek chorus of growing conflate like a magnet to pull you alfresco , so do n’t resist the pull ! Dig in heavily and love the expiation of accomplishment .

By all way , get planting!But start first with perennials , ornamental smoke , and shrubs ( if you did n’t engraft those in the drop ) . You may feel the imperativeness to plant a lot at once , but take sentence to properly loosen or wash roots , and do n’t plant when the ground is too tight , as soil compaction wo n’t help your cover girl get off to a adept starting line .

It ’s almost out of the question to scoot past lush yearly at the nursery without them leaping into your shopping cart , but practice constraint and hold back until your last frost date before planting them out . They are needs plump and rosy from being well - prey and water in their nursery , but this make them especially vulnerable to lower temperatures . If you buy early , place flats in daybreak sun in a spot you walk by every twenty-four hour period . Keep them watered , and if you have to wait more than a couple of weeks to plant them , apply a fluid plant food once or twice until then . If low temperature ( 50 ° F or miserable ) endanger , pull them in spite of appearance .

Keep your plant tags . I ca n’t punctuate enough how worthful it is to know exactly what you institute and when you plant it . You are going to fall in passion with some of your plants , and some will disappoint ( even die ! ) . You ’ll desire to share them , warn about them , get more of them , or recommend them . I promise you that your gardening friendsdon’twant to get word you wax on about how heavy a plant is only to learn you tell them it is “ some kind of bee balm , I think . ” While it makes perfect sense to leave ID ticket right next to the plant in the ground , I happen to dislike the flavor of tag in the garden . One solution is to gather the tags of everything you ’re planting in an empty weed or pouch , then once inside wash the mud off , indite the dates in permanent marker on the back , and put them in plastic sleeves in a three - ring ring-binder . For perennials that require their location marked , I use a golf game tee stuck in the primer coat . I ’ve started shift to digital book - keeping by tear photos of the tags and putting them all in a consecrated pamphlet on my phone . The escort will be right there in the photo details . If you do n’t beware leave tags in billet in the earth , I still recommend a notebook computer for writing down the name , because I ’m fairly certain there are fairies whose primary delectation is in steal plant life tags .

Get the most out of your daffodil . Their blossom may be a faded memory by April , but now is the fourth dimension to consider dividing and cross out the placement of your daffodils ( Narcissusspp . and cvs . , Zones 3–9 ) to set yourself up for a bigger show next February . Daffodils are long - endure and do n’t necessarily need dividing , but it ’s an inexpensive way to get more flowers in more places . moil down and swipe clumps , separating bulbs . It ’s o.k. to do this before the leaf disappearance , but if you do , water them in after replant . It is not necessary to fertilize or add off-white repast . In sandy stain , just top with compost . When you replant , be trusted you are plant deeply enough . Shallowly planted bulbs may break up off smaller bulbs that do n’t bloom well . In well - drain soil , replant bulbs three times as deep as the bulb diameter ; in Lucius DuBignon Clay grease , imbed them two times as deep . On exist clumps , waitress until the foliage browns — or at least yellow — before removing it . Place a golf teeing ground in the ground near each clump so that make out fall you will know where to fertilize with compost and will prevent yourself from unexpectedly digging it up .

Thank your camelliasfor their winter bloom by pruning , fertilizing , and mulching them decently . This is prime clip for pruning evergreen plant , and camellias ( Camelliaspp . and cvs . , Zones 6–10 ) in finicky , because next year ’s flower bud have not begin to grow yet . Remember , though , that new growth will soon commence , so if you ’re pruning for size , take them back a little further than the size of it you are shooting for . I ’m not an advocate of quotidian fertilization on most shrub , but camellias are an exclusion . They benefit from a modest amount of organic fertilizer such as Holly - tone , compost creature manure , or a slow - release synthetic formula at least every other year . If you go with synthetic , choose a moderately balanced formula with phone number under 15 and pocket-size nutrient . Rake back mulch , propagate fertilizer , water , then put back mulch or add new mulch if needed . Camellia root need good air , so a light mulch such as pine phonograph needle is preferred to something that packs down like hammered hardwood .

institute back the bungalow gardenby direct - sow in warm - time of year yearly . I ’m talk about great - grandmother ’s garden plants such as cosmos ( Cosmos bipinnatus ) , zinnias ( Zinnia elegans ) , and sunflower ( Helianthus annuus ) . Direct - sown annual displays are becoming rare sight , which is a shame because it ’s hard to scramble their cheerful magic spell . They are most easily grown in consecrate , little - to - no mulched plots in full sunlight ( the end of the vegetable bed or around the mailbox is perfect ) . Rake and expose soil , and sprinkle smaller come or campaign in larger ones . Then top with a light stratum of compost , and water supply in softly . look until seedlings are 4 to 6 inch high before attempting a light mulch . Also , do n’t be dissipate by Northern advice or seed mixes into sowing coolheaded - season annuals such as poppy ( Papaver rhoeas ) , giant larkspur ( Consolida ajacis ) , bachelor ’s buttons ( Centaurea cyanus ) , or love - in - a - mist ( Nigella damascena ) . We sow those in September here in the Southeast .

— Paula Gross is the former adjunct manager of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte Botanical Gardens .

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April Garden To-Do List for the Southwest

April Garden To-Do List for the Northeast

April Garden To-Do List for the Midwest

April Garden To-Do List for the South

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