Ed’s Early Spring Gardening Tips:

1. Start dividing perennials in your garden in early spring.

2. Cut back ornamental grasses in early spring (by March 20) before they start new growth.

3. Early spring is a good time to plant new perennials, shrubs, and trees in your garden. Roots become established before the heat of summer, decreasing the amount of watering needed. Need help in choosing from the hundreds of varieties of perennials, shrubs, and trees available? Schedule a free landscape design consultation with Paul or John. They can help you design a landscape for all seasons with those perennials, shrubs, and trees that will do well in your garden.

4. Apply Preen® garden weed preventer before weed seeds germinate. Apply just once and enjoy weed-free gardens for up to 14 weeks.

5. Remove flowers from spring-blooming bulbs as soon as the blooms fade. Wait to cut back the foliage until the leaves turn yellow or brown indicating that the foliage has completely died down. This will ensure a stronger plant next Spring.

6. Prune back roses and remove all dead branches. Don’t forget to remove dead leaves from the ground around the plant. This helps to prevent problems from black spot and other diseases.

7. As leaves emerge on rose bushes in early Spring, apply Fung-onilTM multi-purpose fungicide. This will help to prevent blackspot on your roses in the summer.

8. Feed your azaleas, rhododendrons, hollies, and other evergreens with an acidic fertilizer. Apply fertilizer outside the canopy of the shrubs (at the drip edge), not at the base.

9. Top dress your existing garden beds with new mulch. Mulch helps to retain moisture in your garden beds and provides necessary nutrients to the soil as it breaks down.

10. For an alternative to mulch that is nutrient-rich and breaks down easily, try leaf compost. It maintains its consistency and dark color longer than bark mulch.

11. Plant annual flower and vegetable seeds inside now. Start seeds in Jiffy Professional Greenhouses® and transplant in biodegradable Jiffy Pots® that can be planted directly in the soil outside.

12. Turn houseplants to give even light.