Blog and How to?
April
The first real big “turf day”. All of a sudden, spring lawn care tasks increase: Weeding, sweeping, raking, cleaning, rolling, replenishing, leveling, sprinkling, sowing, turning over, feeding, mowing, mowing, weeding, and pest control can all be important and necessary. Don’t do it: If the grass “suddenly jumps” in the spring (of course you didn’t know how to mow it either, but it also rained on the weekends, guests came, you left… etc.) you don’t want to replace the mowing at the same time in such a way that you “mow the grass”. In this case, the lawn can be gradually brought back to its normal height, otherwise it will get shocked, turn yellow, get holes, and in the worst case, die. The golden rule also applies here, no more than a third of the length of the grass can be cut at a time without penalty. If you can’t make it or you don’t want to do the garden work yourself, call us, don’t let the garden go wild!
5 important rules of spring lawn care
- Regular trimming!
Well, yes: the shearing! You can mow the lawn with scissors, a hand-held lawnmower or a motorized lawnmower, but the tool must be sharp so that it cuts and does not shred the grass. The lawn must be mowed every week so that the grass blades on the remaining stubble are 4-5 cm long. The clippings must not be left on the lawn, the machine will pick them up, or we will rake them ourselves. The grass clippings enrich the compost, but in order for it to rot quickly, it must be mixed with other organic garden waste.
Young lawns planted in autumn are recommended to be rolled after mowing, because this promotes the bushiness of the grass roots, as the grasses that make up the lawn are able to develop roots at each stem node. - Abundant watering.
In our drought-prone climate, regular and abundant watering is an essential requirement for a beautiful lawn. If possible, water in the evening (at night with an automatic watering system), but absolutely avoid watering in sunny weather, because then the loss of water to evaporation is very high. - Nutrient supply.
A regularly mowed lawn loses a lot of nutrients, so it is absolutely necessary to fertilize it in the spring. - Let’s watch the weeds!
There is no lawn in which weeds do not appear. The most aggressive of these are the howitzer, the moss, the dandelion, the broad-leaved plantain, and more recently the bird sorrel. We can get rid of them with a narrow-blade weed hoe or chemicals. - Let’s aerate the soil!
Renovating older lawns is unthinkable without aeration. Excellent manual and motorized machines are now available for this purpose, which loosen the soil settled by irrigation and trampling. The method is not yet widespread in our country, it is worth trying!
Spring in the garden: a time of renewal
With the end of winter, the cool and gray weather, we usually set about taking care of and renovating our garden. On the one hand, this can mean the care and cleaning of our existing garden or even the reconstruction or reconstruction of the garden in the spring according to a completely new concept. Before we start transforming our garden, it is important to think about what we want and what kind of garden suits us and our residence and home.
General maintenance work in the garden in spring:
- carefully weed the beds, the bases of the plants and the spaces between the pavings, if necessary (avoiding ornamental plants) spray with herbicide
- the weeded and free-standing soil parts approx. Cover with 5-8 cm thick pine bark (mulch) to prevent further weed growth
- plant the empty flower beds and containers with plants as you like: flowering annuals, perennials
- check and restart the irrigation system with a test run.
- in the absence of an irrigation system, we check the condition of the equipment necessary for proper watering of the garden.
Spring lawn care:
- if necessary, lay a lawn mat or plant a new lawn by sowing seeds
- in the spring, the lawn is aerated and covered as necessary
- the grass – depending on the weather – begins to grow continuously in the months of March and April, from then on it is necessary to ensure regular mowing of the lawn
- rake the cut grass, because the dead blades of grass are deposited on the ground, and if they are exposed to moisture, the resulting felt-like layer prevents the proper ventilation of the soil
- remove the weeds with a manual weeding tool and fill the remaining holes with topsoil, then sow the spot with grass seed
- instead of manual weeding – due to the larger number of weeds – we can also choose to use a selective weed killer – in the spring, ensure that the lawn is adequately supplied with nutrients, we recommend evenly spreading high-quality long-acting lawn fertilizer over the entire lawn
Spring care of trees and shrubs:
- cut dead, diseased branches – trim hedges to shape with hand shears or a machine hedge trimmer
- prune shrubs that flower during the summer in early spring, while those that bloom in spring should be pruned as soon as possible after the flowers have faded
- in early spring – before bud break – preventive spraying is recommended (so-called washing-off spray)
- in order to supply nutrients to the shrubs, apply long-acting fertilizer to the soil at the base of the plants
Spring care of perennials:
- we cut dead shoots left over for the winter
- if this was not done in autumn, in early spring, lift the larger perennial stems out of the ground and replant them after division
- in order to supply nutrients to the perennials, apply organic fertilizer to the soil at the base of the plants
Pring pruning
Pruning is an important and necessary intervention in the “life” of a plant, but as many plants as there are well-chosen pruning times. For example, the pruning of stone fruits (almonds, apricots, peaches, plums, cherries, sour cherries, almonds) can be started in mid-March, as close as possible to flowering, but the pruning of apple fruits (quinces, pears, apples) must be done in winter, when the temperature is 0°C is above, and next time we will do green pruning in the summer.
Spring pruning can also have health reasons. In winter, for example, it was broken by snow or sleet, or it is sick, it shows that it is injured. If it has not yet become infected and there is only one split, we prune it to create a healthy, beautiful surface, which we can then treat with a wound treatment material to prevent fungus and bacteria from entering.
Pruning in the spring is justified even if we have a plant that blooms on shoots, which means that it will produce flowers on that year’s shoots towards the end of summer. Examples include garden mallow and myrtle. The harder I cut back, the more, stronger shoots it will produce, and the more flowers we will have. On the other hand, if we don’t prune it, it grows short and stubby and produces fewer and fewer flowers.
The steps of pruning
- We always prune with a sharp, well-functioning tool that does not tear or damage the tissues!
- First, cut off the canes (water shoots).
- Cut off the fruit mummies and the diseased, withered parts!
- Prune back the canes!
- Let’s thin out the most valuable fruit part of the tree, the fruit bugs!
- Let’s disinfect! – For plants susceptible to infections –