By Craig Jenkins Sutton

President and co-founder of Topiarius 

Make a plan and map out any changes you are going to make to current landscaping. Plan, measure, and budget ahead of time to avoid major time-wasting mistakes.

Get a garden or lawn soil test. They're inexpensive and provide good information on what nutrients are missing and the type of fertilizer that is needed.

Rake the lawn to get rid of dead growth, stray leaves, twigs and winter debris, and remove leaves and weeds from borders and beds.

Pot up cool-tolerant annuals such as pansies, alyssum, snapdragons and ranunculus. Divide hostas, grasses and daylilies once they show signs of growth. Now is a great time to move plants to a more desirable location.

Scrub your garden pots with baking soda and water. To disinfect, try soaking them in a 10 percent bleach disinfectant solution. After cleaning or soaking, make sure to rinse pots out thoroughly with water.

Wait to prune spring flowering trees and shrubs until after they bloom as they flower on last season's growth.

To help keep a full appearance on evergreen trees you can pinch back the "candles" or new growth, by about 1/2 in the spring. This encourages a bushier habit, but does not effectively control overall size.

Add high-quality mulch in all landscape beds to help control weeds, retain soil moisture and regulate soil temperature fluctuations, and keep mulch away from the base of plants.

"Great article on composting ('Winterize your lawn and garden,' Seeds, December 10, 2014)," writes Bob Dailey, water awareness/public education coordinator, The Woodlands Joint Powers Agency. "However, we advise people to make a 'cake mix,' not 'lasagna.' This spreads the nitrogen and carbon elements throughout the pile and speeds up the decomposition process. Water is also a necessity. The pile should have the wetness of a wrung-out sponge. We also recommend that the best compost is achieved by using equal weight of carbon (fallen leaves, etc.) and nitrogen (green stuff), not equal volume. Since fallen leaves weight much less than water-filled nitrogen (kitchen waste, coffee grounds, grass clippings and such), it's easy to just lift a bag of leaves and a bag of grass clippings and see how the weight compares. It might take three or more bags of leaves to equal the weight of one bag of grass clippings. My new compost pile has now heated up to 140 degrees since I built it last week. The microbe-produced heat helps break down the vegetative tissue and lignin, and makes it easier for the real workers (earthworms, pill bugs and other detritus eaters to finish the job."

APRIL

Nacogdoches: On April 17-19, Stephen F. Austin State University will host the sixth Big Thicket and West Gulf Coastal Plain Science Conference. The focus of this year's plenary session will be "Watersheds and Waterflow" to be addressed by invited speakers. Dr. Francis "Ab" Abernethy, professor emeritus of English at Stephen F. Austin State University and editor emeritus of the Texas Folklore Society, and Dr. Kirk O. Winemiller, Regents Professor, Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences, Texas A&M University will give plenary presentations. The Science Conference provides a forum for scientists and resource managers to share their research in the West Gulf Coastal Plain ecosystem, which comprises a variety of communities including southeastern pine forests, bottomland hardwood forests, and prairies. All topics relevant to the ecology of the region are appropriate, including studies of plant communities, wildlife, restoration ecology, effects of climate change, invasive species, fisheries, and large-scale disturbance ecology. In addition to the general call for papers, symposia or special sessions may be planned and available on a variety of topics. Contact the Program Committee BigThicket2015@gmail.com  if you are interested in hosting a session. Presenters are encouraged to submit manuscripts to be published in a special issue of the peer-reviewed journal, Southeastern Naturalist. All manuscripts will be subject to the full peer-review process and the standards of the Southeastern Naturalist. Abstracts for papers can be submitted to Dr. Chris Comer BigThicket2015@gmail.com by 1 March. Registration fees are $100 by 20 March; late registration is $150 and student registration is $25. Registration for only one day is $60. Optional field trips are not included in fees. Three trips are planned: 1) Saline Prairie, led by Will Godwin and Jason Singhurst; 2) Tonkawa Sand Hills, led by James Van Kley, and 3) Birding in the SFA Experimental Forest, led by Cliff Shackelford. Sponsors of the event include the Big Thicket Association, Stephen F. Austin State University, USFS Southern Research Station, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and the Big Thicket National Preserve. Contact Dan Saenz of the U.S. Forest Service (Conference Chair) with questions at dsaenz@fs.fed.us or check the conference website at www.bigthicket.org for additional information.

• Many, many practical and timely garden tips that are for Texas - not Maine or California!
• Organic, earth friendly tips to make your garden grow and prosper
• Lots of space to record your own activities for future reference
• Planting dates and tips for vegetables, flowers, herbs, fruit and lawns

The Vegetable Book

By Dr. Sam Cotner

Finally, back by popular demand and in its fourth printing, the most informative and comprehensive "how-to" book on vegetable gardening in Texas (also, suitable for most other areas of the South) written by the late, great Dr. Sam Cotner, former head of horticulture at Texas A&M University and lifelong gardener. This interesting read has over 370 pages of detailed information on every crop, from Asparagus to Watermelon including problem/solving sections for each vegetable. If you want to maximize your enjoyment and success growing vegetables in Texas, this book is a "must have," whether you are a beginner or a seasoned gardener. Price $34.02

By William D. Adams

The best thing for tomato enthusiasts since the tomato itself! Adams draws on more than thirty years of experience to provide a complete, step-by-step guide to success in the tomato patch. Learn everything from soil preparation, planting, feeding, caging and watering. Liberally sprinkled with the author's easy humor and illustrated with his own excellent photographs, this must-have book has everything you'll need to assure a bumper crop! 189 pages. Lots of color photographs! Price: $31.94

($15.82 if ordered separately)

Remit payment to:

TG Books * PO Box 9005 * Waco, TX 76714

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