Spring cleanup tasks are sure ways of maintaining the flamboyance of your garden. You need to proceed and get rid of burlap from shrubs and trees, as the weather gets warmer. You can prune away branches that were damaged in winter to allow for new growth. You may consider cutting old perennials and pull up old annuals. March is specifically a good time for you to do the cleanup in your yard. At this time you can take stock of the garden and see what needs to be thinned out. You may also transplant plants to prevent crowding and fill up bare spaces.
Pruning Dead Branches and Plants
Cleaning up is quite a simple task. Branches and trees in your garden damaged by wind and snow should be pruned. Using hand pruners instead of electric shears removes an external layer of tissues that prevents air and sunlight from reaching the center of the shrub. You need to prune summer-flowering shrubs like Rose of Sharon before the buds begin to swell. However, you should wait for spring bloomers like such as forsythia until they flower before pruning them. Overgrown evergreens in your garden have to be pruned back to the branch in whose direction you need them to grow.
Dividing and Cutting Back Perennials
Flowering perennials have to be pruned to a height of 4–5 inches. For ornamental grasses, it is 2–3 inches. This allows for growth of new shoots. You should dig up the perennial in areas where the soil has thawed. For daylilies and hosts, thin the crowded beds dividing them into at least three stems per cluster. You can transplant others into bare areas. On climbers, you need to keep younger green canes while removing the older woody ones. You can clean them up through bending of the canes horizontally while tipping the buds downwards.
Cleaning up Plant Borders
You have to rake out dead foliage and fallen leaves. This will prevent diseases and pests from inhabiting your garden. Old mulch should be replaced with a newer one. For heaved plants, you need to push them back into the flower beds and borders. You can do this by taping them down using your foot around their base.
Recent Comments