It's been a weird winter, with far less snow and ice than expected. But there's been plenty of wind and some hard rains, both of which can make a mess of your yard. As soon as possible, you're going to want to remove fallen limbs, rake up the debris, lay mulch, plant new shrubs or install new garden features. As some of you know, now is the time to contact us about spring clean-ups and all your other landscaping needs. We get busy fast once people realize winter is over, and this is one case where being an early bird really helps. Give us a call to get on our schedule, and also ask us about our maintenance program.

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Vertical Gardening Can Be an Attractive Move Up!

If you have been in your home for a while, or have a small yard, you may find one day that you have filled up the gardening space you have available. But don't despair. If you can't spread out, expand upward! A growing trend among homeowners who have small lots or tight spaces is vertical gardening. Vertical gardening is just what it sounds like: Picking plants that grow, flower, and even bear vegetables on vertical poles or arbors. It's a great way to add appeal to a corner spot, animate a dull wall, cover an ugly fence or provide privacy from close neighbors. And if you're really ambitious, you can create compartmentalized vertical garden structures that can accommodate a wide array of flowers, herbs and even vegetables. Not surprisingly, vines are among the most popular plants for vertical gardens. There is a wide range of options, from climbing roses, to clematis, to the early blooming winter jasmine, which has yellow flowers like forsythia and can bloom as early as February. But you can double your pleasure in a vertical garden by mixing in climbing vegetables like cucumbers, tomatoes, squash and scarlet runner pole beans. If vines are not your thing, more and more people are experimenting with compartmentalized vertical gardens, especially if you have a wall you'd like to cover. Modular trays, rustic pouches and tube planters are now available from landscaping stores, and more susbstantial structures can be built with timber shelving kits, bricks or even cement blocks. Whatever you choose, a vertical garden can bring visual appeal at eye level, and save your back from bending!   

March, the saying goes, comes in like a lion, but leaves like a lamb. That means you'll have to factor in the possibility of raw weather when making garden plans.

• March is a good time to transplant shrubs and trees. You can move them as soon as the soil is workable, but before buds have swelled or broken open.
• March is also a good time to fertilize those shrubs.
• Divide and transplant summer blooming perennials now and fertilize established ones as soon as new growth appears.
• And speaking of dividing, split your snowdrops while they're still in leaf.
• Fertilize tulips as foliage appears and make another application after flowering. Fertilize all other spring-flowering bulbs after flowering with bone meal or bulb booster.
• If weeds appear in bulb beds, remove them by hand rather than using a cultivating tool that can damage the bulb base.
• Remove mulch covers from roses, azaleas, clematis vines and other tender shrubs once nighttime temperatures rise into the 30s (but re-cover them if temperatures drop).