Apply pre-emergents in late February or early March to both your lawn and your landscape beds.   Many folks are not familiar with putting a pre-emergent in with their landscaping.  Here's how it works:  When you apply a pre-emergent on top of the mulch around your shrubs, it forms a barrier that prevents germination of seeds.  It does not kill existing weeds, so you want to get it down early enough before those seeds start sprouting.  If you disturb the barrier by reapplying mulch, planting other plants, or raking up leaves, you must reapply the preemergent.

Almost all Roses are susceptible to a fungus called blackspot.   Fungi live in the soil and enter the plant through its root system.  Now is the time to spray your soil with Lime Sulfur Spray to sterilize the soil and reduce the occurrence of black spot this year.  You can only spray this chemical during cool temperatures, so now's the time.  Do not spray the plant... only the ground around it.  The chemical will burn the plant, if it touches it.  You may want to remove old mulch (mulch harbors fungi), spray the ground, apply new mulch and spray again.   If you don't have the time to do all that, just spraying the ground around the plant will certainly help.

Any shrub that you have that tends to get a fungus in the summer can be treated the same way.  Indian Hawthornes are also prone to blackspot (be sure not to spray the leaves of the plant).  Crape Myrtles and Dogwoods are prone to powdery mildew.  If you had these problems last summer, we recommend the same lime sulfur spray treatment as described above.