Spring Odds and Ends- Wash your Tools and Gloves

What if you don’t know what to plant in a certain area. Just bring a photo of the area to your planting center and tell them what kind of light you get in that area. They will be able to point you in the right direction. You may also want to get your soil tested. Go to UGA Cooperative Extension for more information or your local Extension office.

*When is the best time to plant an oak....30 years ago! The second best time is now. :D

Again, make sure your tools are clean and ready for another season and wash your gardening gloves and get them freshened up as well.

The best way to help prevent mosquitoes from taking over your yard is by removing all standing water on your property. That’s true for trash cans, toys that are stored outside, gutters and any other area where you see standing water. You can add mosquito eliminating briquettes to places where you just can’t keep the area dry. We have drains in the lawn that we aren’t able to keep dry so I throw in a briquette every so often to kill the mosquito larva.

Prune any shrubs or trees in order to promote new growth and remember to use Holly Tone.

I have a Mahonia (also called an Oregon Grape) I’d like to share with you. I love this plant and it came up wild. I moved it to a better location for me and it’s done well. The birds love the berries and I love the yellow cap it gets on the top. It’s so pretty and is non-deciduous or an evergreen. Another Holly Tone candidate.

Favorite Gardening Tools

Here are some of my favorite gardening tools. First is potting soil. Love the organic potting soil from Espoma. Not only is it great stuff but it has a zip lock bag so you can store it without fear of spilling and it keeps creepy crawlies out. Plus it is enhanced with Mycorrhizae which is a water saving formula. This is extremely important during the dry season.

photo credit: CK Worley

I also like their Gro-Tone. It’s Espoma’s organic liquid plant food. Really easy to use and the plants like it a lot. Espoma has some really cute and informative short videos on planting. You should check out their web site and take a quick look.

photo credit: CK Worley

My next favorite is the Soil Moist mats. I used these when I pot plants. Especially great for hanging baskets. As you know from my past blogs, Soil Moist acts as a water reservoir for your plants. This is especially important during a drought. It will store over 200 times its weight in water and releases it slowly to the plant when it needs it.

photo credit: CK Worley

Soil Moist spikes are great for potted plants. It has all the benefits of Soil Moist crystals and it continuously feeds the plant as well. These are good if you already have potted plants that just need an extra pick me up.

photo credit: CK Worley

Now, here is the thing. If you are one of the first three people to tell me where I first mentioned Holly Tone in my blog you will win a free sample of Holly Tone! You have to be one of the first three.

photo credit: CK Worley

So go out and plant and have some fun right now. You will be rewarded in the spring!

Aucuba

photo credit: CK Worley

Between our front and back yard we have Aucuba hedges that are at least 20 years old.  Here we have both non-variegated (non-striped) plants and variegated (striped) plants.  Aucubas are dioecious having separate male and female plants. The female plant will bear small clusters of red berries if a male plant is near by. These berries will hang in there from Fall until Spring. It will grow from 4 to 7 feet tall and some up to 10 feet tall, but you can find smaller ones.  It grows well in Zones 6-10 but some people in zone 5 have had good luck with them.

photo credit: CK Worley

They are drought tolerant but we water often from our well (we don’t soak them), fertilize with Holly Tone (which they LOVE) and prune the dieback after winter has past.
We lifted the plants up and over our fence which they seem to like and now smaller plants are growing to fill in underneath.  It serves as a wonderful privacy fence for us.

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