Ode to Springtime

	Providing your flower beds with proper nutrients throughout this season will keep them healthy and beautiful.
	Tall Fescue is the ideal pick for grass as it stays green both during the winter and spring months, and is easily maintained.

Ahh, spring time is here.  Birds will be chirping, bees will be buzzing and your garden will be aching.  Aching for you to roll up your sleeves and dig in!  There are many chores to do during this lovely season in Southern California.  It is the perfect time to give any garden a facelift using annuals, perennials, trees, shrubs and vegetables.  But, the cornerstone to a solid garden comes from a well manicured, healthy lawn.

April is a good time to feed all types of established lawns and to plant new ones from seed or sod. For fertilizing existing lawns you still need to use a fertilizer that has nitrate nitrogen in it. Soil temperatures are not quite high enough to use a summer fertilizer product. Just ask your favorite nurseryman for a product with the nitrate nitrogen. Remember not to get any in the pool as most fertilizer has some iron in it and iron will stain pools. Also blow it off your sidewalks and then water the fertilizer in so it does not burn your turf.

It is far easier to establish a lawn from sod. No issues with weeds overpowering the seed and then having to deal with the weeds. Sod is definitely a more expensive way to go; however, believe me, it is not worth the headaches from seed. Make sure you know the benefits of the different types of grasses before choosing the one that is right for you. 

Choose warm or cool-season grasses wisely.  If water in our area were abundant, most gardeners would never choose to plant such warm-season grasses as Bermuda and Hybrid Bermuda because of their bad habits like going brown in the winter and invading borders.  Aesthetically, cool-season lawns are the way to go.  They stay green during the winter and look more like eastern lawns.  My recommendation for a cool season turf is dwarf tall fescue. However, such issues as droughts, low water supplies and state laws have made gardeners realize that it's unrealistic to expect a lawn to look like a putting green year long.  So, the ultimate lawn will be the one that can survive. 

Bermuda can look nice from just 18 inches of irrigation per year.  Even if you cut that down by two-thirds, it will still stay alive.  Bermuda is an invasive species, but the reason that it invades is also the reason that it lives so long.  If you want to block it from creeping into your flowerbeds, either
 lay down a concrete curb or install a landscape fabric like biobarrier which you can lay under mulch and stop roots from spreading.

It's all about timing.  April is an ideal season to plant warm-season annuals and perennials for summer color.  Many gardeners who planted cool-season flowers last fall have no room to plant in.  Their beds will still be full of bloom until May in many cases.  If your bed is missing color right now, you probably didn't plant the right things at the right time.  But do not fret!  Six-packs or 4” pots of warm-season flowers to plant now include ageratum, petunia, amaranth, coreopsis, cosmos, celosia, coleus, marigold, nicotiana, portulaca, scarlet sage, sweet alyssum, and verbena.  A few of these species will dress up any bed in the coming months. 

It is also time to fertilize your citrus trees. Purchase citrus and avocado fertilizer and follow the directions. It is that easy. As your deciduous fruit trees set fruit (plums, apricots, nectarines) you will have bigger and better fruit by thinning out the fruit. Remove 2 fruits for every 1 fruit you leave on the tree.  Sure, you may think you are losing fruit; however, the fruit that remains will be plentiful and bigger than you can imagine!

Randy Newhard is President and Founder of New Way Landscape & Tree Services, a full-service landscape maintenance and tree care contractor serving commercial, industrial and multifamily housing in San Diego County for 24 years. New Way also provides sports turf management for all athletic venues. (858) 505-8300 www.newwaypro.com

Prior Page | Next Page

Submit questions, thoughts and tips to Editor@WalkthroughNews.com at 7845 Ronson Road, San Diego, CA 92111.