April
Is your patio spilling over with color? It could be!
Mine is brilliant with pots of blue and yellow violas, pansies, blue ageratum, geraniums,a nd white alyssum. But they were all planted in November and December. So reach for your calendar and make a note to plant these things next year in those months. Even a huge redwood tub of yellow marguerites was planted last fall. The petunias blooming now are left over from last year. All in the sun.
Last month, and this month, is the time to be planting containers and tubs, and moss-lined hanging baskets of plants that will bloom clearn thru till next November. To plant now use for Pink: petunias, White: allysum, Blue: ageratum, potato vine, light blue or dark blue lobelia, Yellow: or Orange: dwarf french marigold, Red: fiberous begonia. These are all for sun. Vinca also.
For shade, now, use fuchsia, white allysum and impatients, but this would be light shade.
Small cyclamen can be purchased now for next winter's bloom.
PLANT - Dahlias from now till mid-June. A handful of bonemeal worked into soil below tubers at planting time is good. Take mum blooming bulbs, braid it and bend it over till completely brown. Try cherry tomatoes in a hanging basket, one basket will supply two people all summer. Put cascade mums into 12" pots now.
SPRAY - Watch roses for signs of mildew and spray it as it appears. Usually next month is bad for this. Spray ground too. Systemic granuales with fertilizer will protect from insects and fungicide to get the mildew. Systemic granules completely protect cinerarias, calendula, carnations, and any other plan you knoww that will get insect damage. Most of the garden will not need spray.
PRUNE - Camellias and azaleas after bloom, but only if needed for shaping and only after reading a book on pruning them. Important too is to remove the dead flowers from plants. Know what you are doing here. Sunseet prints a good book on pruning. Prune cape honeysuckle. Many other spring blooming shrubs need pruning after bloom.
PINCH - fuchsias till May Day.
FERTILIZE - lawns - shrubs and trees and bulbs when blooming.
Epiphyllums get top dreing of well-rotted manure. Hydrangeas get camellia food or cottonseed now. KEEP AFTER THOSE SNAILS.
WEED - Don't let it get ahead of you!
Hint: Even if you have poor reusults with petunias in the garden, do try them in container, epecially in moss lined baket where snails can't get them. Only trouble wa leaf minor and you can control that for six weeks at a time with systemic granules. These granule can be bought with or without added fertilizer.
REMEMBER: A garden is a thing of joy and a job forever! - unknown
Florence Sullivan
