April Chores and Tips

Here are our April Chores and Tips suggestions! Did we miss any? Tell us in the comments below!

Do you have roses? Fertilize your established roses. Liquid fertilizers can be added at two week intervals but follow the instructions on the container.
Make a plot layout of your flower borders so you will know where to locate the spring flowering bulbs you plant next fall. It will always make spring and summer gardening easier. You will be able to identify the plants in your border and plan for continuous blooming by setting young annuals between bulbs and early flowering perennials after their blooms have faded.
April is a great time to clean up plants and flower beds; pick out dead leaves, twigs and prune dead limbs.

As the weather gets warmer and the days lengthen, adjust your irrigation timer to water more frequently. Be sure to run your system long enough to wet the top two feet of soil. A deep, infrequent water is much more beneficial than a daily sprinkle.
Allow your wildflowers to go to seed so they will produce a natural healthy feast for birds as well as reseeding themselves so they grow again next year.
Begin fertilizing Bermuda grass lawns during late April or early May. Follow the instructions on the container.
Control lawn weeds now through late May before they get too large.
To determine if soil is ready to work, squeeze a handful of soil into a tight ball and then break the ball apart with your fingers. If the ball of soil crumbles easily, the soil is ready to work. If the soil stays balled, it is too wet to work.
Once new growth begins on trees and shrubs, cut them back to where the green wood begins to remove any twigs that were affected by winter kill.

Your lawn mower blade should always be sharp so they do not tear the grass. If you sharpen the blade at home, make sure you balance it too. Place the center hole of the blade on a screwdriver handle held upright in the vise. If it doesn’t balance, sharpen the heavier side until the blade balances on the handle.
Invest in a hose-end shut-off valve this spring. These are available separately as part of a watering wand. This allows you to turn off the hose as you move around the yard and shut off the water immediately, rather than letting the hose run while you hurry to turn off the main spigot.