March is a good month to start handling important landscape tasks so your lawn is ready for the Spring weather. Here are some useful tips on where to start.
1) Address Defoliated Plants
March is an excellent time to prune defoliated trees and shrubs. It allows us to easily see the problems and, after pruning, the volume of debris disposal is greatly reduced. Dead, broken, animal-damaged, malformed, rubbing, and crossing branches can be removed, as well as suckers, water sprouts, and branches growing at obscure angles. This routine maintenance allows your landscape plants to grow sturdier, healthier, and less prone to insect and disease attack. Pruning can also be helpful for functionality and aesthetics. “Heading up” is the practice of removing the lower lateral branches to allow for ease of mowing and foot traffic.
2) Clean Up Winter Debris
After the thaw is a perfect time to clean up winter debris from the landscape beds and lawn area. Leaves that over-winter in the landscape can harbor disease spores that could re-infect any plants once spring rains begin. This also gives you an opportunity to break up clumps of mulch in the beds so the spring rains will penetrate rather than be repelled by the old mulch. Removing the clumps of matted leaves from lawn areas as early as possible will reduce the chances of grassless dead spots forming once your lawn starts to wake up.
3) Your Transplant Opportunity
Spring dormancy of perennials and woody ornamentals provides a good window for transplanting and dividing. During this period, moving plants can be done even by bare rooting, if necessary, due to size or location. When moving woody ornamentals they will benefit from selectively thinning the top growth. If bare rooting, be sure to get soil in contact with all the roots in the new planting hole. Perennials can be separated into smaller clumps as small as single eyes, rhizomes, or corms. Most perennials are actually rejuvenated by dividing every few years. One exception would be with peonies and hellebores — they’ll take a few seasons to perform well again.
4) Pruning Old Growth
March is the perfect time to prune back all ornamental grasses to stubs or as low as you can. The best tool for this purpose is a power hedge shears. Early season pruning is the best time to avoid pruning any possible emerging new growth. Once the tips of new growth are pruned they stay that way all season.
5) Weed Management
Granular pre-emergent weed preventers should be applied prior to new mulching. The best ones to use not only prevent grassy type weeds but also broadleaf weeds. One particular brand is Snapshot DG. Granular type products are best applied using a hand-held whirlybird spreader.
If your landscaping is in need of a refresh, Diebolt Landscape Co. can help design and build landscaping and hardscaping that suits your unique needs. Contact us to get started in Lancaster, Allentown, and Wyomissing.