(Signs from Mother Nature to get doing some garden chores)

Mother really does know best…Mother Nature that is! Mother Nature talks to us on a regular basis. She talks to us in her own beautiful and gentle way. Plants blooming, grass greening, birds building nests, are all her ways of speaking to us. She is trying to tell us something. If we listen closely, we might actually hear. Mother Nature has a gentle way of prodding us out in the garden. Her way of writing her honey-do list always seems much kinder than our own to ourselves.

One of Mother Nature’s first gentle prods is the bloom of the yellow forsythia bush. Luckily, it is in every town across Connecticut, creating living walls of gold that we can’t miss. So what is Mother Nature trying to tell us with this bright yellow signal flag? She has a few messages to get across to us gardeners. She wants us to know that soil temperatures are getting warmer and will reach approximately 55 degrees when the forsythia is at its peak bloom. This is important. A 55-degree soil temperature means so much.

Mother Nature’s To-Do List when the Forsythia is blooming:

1. Apply Crabgrass Pre-Emergent with fertilizer now. Water it in or before a rainfall.
2. If you are going to seed your lawn, now is the time. Be sure to use the right crabgrass control with new seed. The only one is Greenview’s Seed Starter Fertilizer plus Crabgrass Preventer.
3. Put down Lime on your lawn and in your veggie garden. The sweeter the soil, the happier the plants.
4. Add some good compost into your veggie garden to add some richness.
5. Plant cool-season veggies like lettuce, kale, and broccoli. They can handle the colder temperatures.
6. If you have not already pruned your roses, be sure to give them a good haircut now.
7. Mulch your garden beds and apply Preen weed preventer over top to stop those weeds from popping up.
8. Apply Bayer Tree & Shrub Protect & Feed to those vulnerable plants that need a little help with insect control i.e. Hemlocks for Woolly Adelgid, Boxwoods for Leafminer, and Hollies for Scale.
9. Apply your first Orchard Spray to all your fruit trees.

There is more that you could do but like every good mother, Mother Nature does not want to overwhelm you. Most of all, she wants you to put down the trowel once and a while and actually enjoy all the yellow beauty she has created.

Come see us at Van Wilgen’s. We would love to help!

SHOPPING LIST:

*Greenview Crabgrass Preventer plus Lawn Food

*Greenview Seed Starter Fertilizer plus Crabgrass Preventer

*Fast Acting Lime or Garden Lime

*Van Wilgen’s Premium Grass Seed

*Garden Manure

*Soilution Compost

*Preen

*Bayer Tree & Shrub Protect & Feed

*Bonide Orchard Spray