Garden Tips Newsletter
Spring Flowering Shrubs—Time to prune and
fertilize
May 11, 2009
After blooms have passed on spring flowering shrubs, cut back all overgrown growth. Azaleas, wiegela, flowering quince, forsythia, and spireas are spring bloomers. Remove entire limbs to simply reduce the size of the plant without destroying its natural habit. A general recommendation, if you haven’t done a soil test, is to apply a low-nitrogen fertilizer, such as 5-10-10, at the rate of 1/4 cup per established plant. For the acid-loving plants like azaleas there are fertilizers specially formulated that help to maintain the acidity of the soil.
Blooming Vegetables!
If your lettuce, mustard, broccoli, spinach and other spring greens have begun to flower (bolt), don’t pull them all out. Try pinching off the pretty, yellow or white flowers and sprinkle them on a salad or sandwich. I think you will be surprised how tasty they are, and your family will be impressed with your ingenuity and flair!
Parsley could be a goner
If you planted parsley last spring, I bet it will shoot up a flowering stalk this spring and then give up the ghost! Parsley is a biennial and will complete its life cycle in two growing seasons. If this is the case with your plant you have two choices. You can let it flower, go to seed and then watch for the little seedlings that will appear around the dying mother plant, or you can yank the thing out and go buy another plant. If you want to have parsley to harvest during the summer your best bet is to go purchase a potted parsley transplant, otherwise you will be waiting on the young seedlings to get large enough and that could take awhile.
Lelia Scott Kelly, Ph.D., writes Garden Tips weekly and is a Horticulture Specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service. Her office is in the North Mississippi Research & Extension Center, Verona.