TREES & SHRUBS: To avoid breakage from heavy snow, periodically put on your boots, heavy coat, and a hat with a brim, and gently shake snow off trees and shrubs that are already in leaf.
ROSES: If you have not already pruned them, now is the time to remove canes that are dead,
damaged, crossing and rubbing, or growing out of bounds. Make clean cuts with a good, sharp
pair of clippers. Avoid cutting back roses that only bloom in spring until after they’ve bloomed.
Fertilize roses with OMRI-certified Down to Earth Rose & Flower Mix, scratching 1 cup into the soil, 1-2” deep in a ring under the ‘dripline’ of the bush. Cover with mulch and water it in well.
PERENNIALS: It’s Prime-Time for planting!
TOMATOES: Set up Solar Caps over the spots where you’ll be planting tomatoes. Let the Solar Caps insulate and warm up the soil for about a week prior to planting. Then you can carefully lift the Solar Cap and place it to the side while you add fertilizer to the planting hole, plant your
tomato start, and then replace the Solar Cap over it.
SPRING VEGETABLES: Starts for spring greens can be transplanted any time this month. It’s a little late now for spinach and arugula, unless you garden in the mountains. Sow seeds directly in the garden now for carrots, lettuce, cilantro, scallions, snow peas, snap peas, beets, turnips, radishes, Swiss chard, kale,and radicchio, as well as annual flowers such as Cosmos, Sweet Alyssum, Nasturtium, Poppy and Marigold. Wait for warmer weather and soils late in the month to sow beans, corn, squash, cucumber, Zinnia, Four O’clock, and Sunflower.