Gardening And More

March Gardening Calendar Fertilize winter flowering annuals with a blooming type fertilizer. Water in all granular type fertilizers. Tattered Liriope leaves can be cut either with a weed eater or your lawn mower set on its highest setting. Lawns should have lime at least yearly. Have you limed your lawn lately? Use 40 pounds per 1000 square feet. Start spring flowers and tomatoes from seeds indoors. It takes about 6 weeks to get strong seedlings. Spring is a good time to prune your boxwood shrubs. Peach and Apple trees need to be sprayed with a fungicide recommended for fruit trees, and spray the trees while the blossoms are on the tree. Prune back Holly shrubs that have gotten too large. If needed, you can prune back to 18 inches. Need to divide your Hostas? When the leaves start to show you can divide and plant elsewhere in a shady part of the garden. Use a solution of SuperThrive as a root stimulator for best results after planting. Fertilize Pecan Trees with a fruit tree ferti...

February Gardening Calendar Trees and Shrubs can be planted now. This is the best time to plant Nut Trees, Fruit Trees, and Shade Trees. Applying SuperThrive instead of a root stimulator to get your newly planted trees and shrubs established much faster. In the fall and winter months water trees and shrubs twice a week, then in spring and summer water three times a week for the first year.   Prune Apple and Pear trees the first week in February, wait until mid-March for Peach trees. Remove stakes, trunk wraps, and guy wires from trees planted last fall. Prune back ¼ of the branches on Figs. Save the horizontal branches, these are the branches that produce fruit. Is your Burford Holly overgrown? Now is a good time to severely prune back. Burford Hollies can be prune back to 12 to 18 inches. Butterfly bushes can be pruned back by ½ the original height. You will be rewarded with bigger blooms this summer. Perennials trim back all the brown, and if necessary, this month ...

Growing Herbs in Containers As a horticulturist, we have favorite endeavors such as growing plants especially herbs in colorful containers of all colors and shapes. Herbs make an excellent choice to decorate a sunny patio, deck, or balcony, and the flowers that are produced on herbs will provide twice the amount of fun to your growing area. The seeds and flowers will provide additional ingredients to recipes. Processing the seeds produced by herbs make additional ingredients to add to recipes. For example, when Cilantro goes to seed the seeds are called Coriander when crushed; and when Dill goes to seed the processed seeds are called Dill Weed. Most flowers produced by herbs are edible and are used in salads, garnishes, and cooking or can be used in dried floral arrangements. For example, add Mexican Marigold Mint flowers to salads and Lavender flowers can be dried and used in floral arrangements. Plants that are classified as Herbs are very diverse and have multiple u...