FEBRUARY SERVICE HIGHLIGHT: SPRING LAWN & LANDSCAPE MAINTENANCE

By Frank Stewart, Landscape Manager

I’m thrilled that we have put most of the winter months behind us so that we can begin to think about spring maintenance. The purpose of this part of the newsletter is to highlight one of the services that we offer each month, but at the same time to offer some tips to those who may choose to tackle the project themselves. I would like to offer a brief outline of our typical lawn and landscape maintenance programs.
 
Lawn care:
 A very important aspect of organic lawn care is the prevention of weed seeds from germinating. This is achieved through the application of corn gluten. Corn gluten is an all-natural product that dehydrates the weed seeds before they can become established. The application of corn gluten should be done as early as mid-March. I think it is a great idea to incorporate the application with your bed maintenance and get both jobs completed at the same time. Measure the square footage of your lawn (length x width) and apply at a rate of 20 pounds to every 1,000 square feet. The corn gluten also has a 9-0-0 fertilizer ratio, so it applies nitrogen to the lawn while preventing weeds. The only time not to apply corn gluten is when you plan to do some spring re-seeding of the lawn.
 
Landscape maintenance:
• The first step is removal of old weeds and debris. Walk the lawn and garden and remove fallen sticks from trees and old weed growth; take this time to analyze your beds and plantings. Left over leaves can often be left to compost, but take care to remove them from the base of plants where crown rot may occur. I suggest the removal of fallen leaves from within the drip line of fruit trees to eliminate any fungus transfer. All of the collected debris is added to the compost pile.

• Next is the pruning of all applicable plants. This is where that dormant pruning that we did back in January is paying off! If dormant pruning was done, we may only have to cut back the ornamental grasses and perennials that were left for winter interest. The main issue to keep in mind is that many plants have already set their buds for spring flowers and we don’t want to cut them off and lose the beautiful blossoms.

• The next step is edging of all beds. Refresh bed lines with a good, sharp spade to provide definition and also to prevent turf from creeping into the beds. Throw the edgings back into the bed and chop them up with the spade and allow the material to compost. Just be careful when throwing edgings under the plant canopy that may lie against the plant crown. Direct the edgings into open areas of the bed.

• Next, we apply the weed control and fertilizers. Pre-emergent weed control is achieved again through the use of corn gluten sprinkled onto the open surfaces of the bed. Another option would be layers of newspaper or Marvin’s ControlRoll recycled paper weed control product applied to the bed with the plants cut out accordingly.
Fertilizer could be in the form of a top-dressing with Marvin’s Compost or an application of organic 8-3-3 to the drip line of trees, shrubs, and perennials. Now we’re ready to mulch!

• New mulch does for the look of your beds what a fresh coat of paint does for the walls of your home. It not only makes everything look great, but has many benefits. Weed suppression, moisture retention, and soil temperature regulation are a few. We recommend occasionally rotating the type of mulch used on your beds. If you have never tried pine straw mulch, please consider it. It is very clean and easy to handle and provides excellent weed suppression.

After clean-up, you can enjoy all of the wonderful spring displays in your gardens, feeling guilt-free as you are all caught up on maintenance. Look in this section next month for some original additions to consider for your landscaping.