Tips for November:
- Apply Lime to your lawn. The Calcium in Dolomite Lime or Super Sweet is needed because in areas of high annual rainfall, calcium is leached from the soil. Apply Dolomite Lime at the rate of forty pounds per 1,000 square feet or Super Sweet at the rate of twenty-five pounds per 2,000 square feet of lawn.
- The late fall/early winter feeding of your lawn is the most important of the year. The cooler temperatures and rainy weather cause grass to come out of dormancy and start to grow. Be sure to rake and remove fallen leaves before applying fertilizer. Keep fallen leaves removed to help prevent molds and bacteria from forming under the leaves.
- Continue picking up fallen fruit under trees. It is best not to compost the fruit especially if the tree suffered from apple/pear scab, apple maggots, or brown rot on Peaches or Cherry trees.
- Stop cutting rose blossoms to let the hips (seed pods) develop. This will help the rose begin going dormant. Pruning at this time of the year should be limited to cutting taller canes down to about four feet on hybrid tea roses. Harder pruning should best be done about the first week of March.
- As soon as frost has killed the foliage on your Dahlias, you can dig them up. Trim the stems off at about six inches and wash the soil off. Once they have dried store the tubers in boxes of peat moss, sawdust, wood shavings or shredded newspaper. Store them in a place where they are protected from freezing. Be sure to check them at least monthly for rot damage.
- Winterize Asparagus and Rhubarb after the first frost has killed the foliage. Remove the leaves and stems and apply a heavy mulch of compost or well-rotted chicken manure over the crown of the plants.
- Fill your home with spring blooming bulbs in winter! Hyacinth, daffodils, paperwhites, tulips and crocus are the easiest. The principal behind forcing is to trick the bulbs into blooming by putting them through a series of climatic changes that mimic the plant’s normal cycle. For more information, see our handout below. Christmas cactus and poinsettias will be arriving at Valley Nursery later this month ( Amaryllis Bulbs and Paperwhites are here now!)
Click links below to read handouts.