April is one of the most beautiful and busiest months in the entire calendar of Western gardening operations.
It is time to look ahead to summer and begin visualizing your garden as you want it to look. For instance, you will want to ensure that there will be no ugly bare spots in the border. That is just one item.
You can now check the lists of ideas you jotted down in the winter to beautify your garden and can get to work in earnest.
With warmer nights, both vegetable and flower seeds will develop fast if started now. Excepted, of course, are the cold spots at the higher altitudes and the whole area cast of the Cascades – Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. You had better play safe in these sections and wait another month until the ground warms up.
April Highlights
Broadcast seeds of sweet-allysum in the open ground as a foil to hide the yellowing leaves of daffodils. Since they should not be cut, the next best thing is to camouflage them. Finally, feed the bulbs dry fish fertilizer or one of the slow-acting commercials.
Since it is again time to prune hedges, gas, electric, or battery-powered hedge clippers will speed up this essential but irksome task.
With their fading blossoms, prune flowering trees and shrubs now if you failed to cut blooms heavily from them for the house.
Divide thick, overgrown clumps of violets and campanulas and set them out in new loose, porous soil beds, working in weed-free rotted manure and peat moss.
The best way to increase your supply of favorite varieties of chrysanthemums, fibrous begonias, and fuchsias is to make cuttings now.
They will root fast and develop into blooming plants quickly. Some nurseries offer balled clumps of named delphiniums. So if you missed planting seeds last fall, you can still enjoy delphiniums this season by setting out husky clumps.
Bulbs that will make the garden ablaze with color in the summertime include tigridias, dahlias, and gladiolus. All three like sunny spots.
Plant tuberous begonias if it’s a shady spot you want to improve. While it’s true that the big specimen plants and huge blooms come from tubers 2-1/2″ to 3″ inches in diameter, you’d be amazed at the splendid bedding effects you can get from tubers 1-1/2″ to 2″ inches across.
Remember, years ago, when gladiolus experts insisted that only the huge jumbo corms should be planted? They’ve changed their tune, too. Now medium-sized tubers are recommended.
The experts feel the same way about begonias. Buy the medium-sized 1-1/2″ to 2″- inch tubers for best bedding effects.
April is the time to think about the summer crop of tomatoes. While growing your own from seed is still possible, you’ll save time and money by buying a few husky seedlings from your local garden center.
Select the short, stocky plants rather than the tall skinny ones. The stocky ones have better root systems. That means, in the long run, better and tastier tomatoes.
Better Camellias
April is not too late to buy and plant improved camellias or work on existing camellias groupings to get better bloom crops for next year.
Existing plantings of camellias should have the basins enlarged and last season’s mulches carefully scraped away. This helps prevent camellia petal blight.
Replace the old mulch with granulated peat moss. If the soil is known to be highly alkaline, as it is in certain sections of Southern California and Arizona, it will pay to add a little soil sulfur. Again, follow the manufacturers’ directions carefully.
After the last of the camellia blossoms has faded away, make the first application of acid plant food. Follow up again six weeks later with a similar application. Some growers give a third feeding, then quit for the season.
However, there is a trend among some growers to favor light monthly feedings from April until the end of September. They claim that better-balanced growth is the result.
Brazilian Beauty (Tibouchina)
In California, a tropical favorite from Brazil has added color to gardens throughout the winter and spring months. It’s the pleroma flower, also known as tibouchina. With its beautiful purple flowers, it has captured the attention of many gardeners.
As the plants’ age, they tend to get spindly, especially as they approach the 8′ to 10′ foot mark.
That’s why it’s a good idea to prune them carefully in April. Wait until the middle of the month, then prune back the tops about one-third. New growth results.
When this is about 4″ to 6″ inches long, pinch back the growing tips to the first pair of side leaves. This corrects the spindly tendencies, helps bush out the plants and produces a heavier crop of bloom for the winter and spring season.
Battle of the Thrips
Peek over the back fence in almost any Western garden, and you’ll find at least a small patch of gladiolus. Though they are one of the easiest summer-blooming plants to grow, they have one drawback—they are victims of tiny pests, less than .1% of an inch long, known as thrips.
It seems no matter how free the corms may be of thrips at the time they are purchased from the dealer. Infestations can take place rapidly after planting.
As a preventive, spray thoroughly with one of the all-purpose sprays from the time the plants are 6″ inches high and continue at 2-week intervals throughout the growing season.
The secret is proper application. The best spray materials in the world are wasted unless they are diluted properly and applied to the tops and undersides of the leaf sheaths of the gladiolus. Timing enters the picture, also.
Follow-up sprayings every two weeks make it possible to enjoy gladiolus blooms unmarred by the rasping effects of the practically invisible thrips.
Dwarf Dahlias
It’s no secret that dwarf bedding dahlias are easy to raise from seed. So take your choice of miniature, double and semi-double flowers.
They will grow around 2-1/2′ to 3′ feet tall and bloom from July until frost. At the end of the season, it will be possible to harvest numerous plump tubers.
Sun-Tolerant Azaleas
The best way to lengthen the season of azalea bloom in your garden is to plant a few members of the Indica Azalea group.
If you’ve run out of shady spots, you’ll be glad to know that these varieties are sun-tolerant. Near the ocean, they’ll take full sun. Elsewhere they’ll do better if given sun only half the day.
The Indicas grow faster and larger than the popular Kurumes. Buy these in the small sizes and watch them develop in your garden. They’re available in pinks, salmon, red, purple, and white.
Subtropicals
With the ground temperatures on the rise, it’s safe to plant out subtropicals (both fruits and ornamentals) in those
favored spots of the Southwest where they usually succeed.
Generally speaking, the subtropicals resent any disturbance of the root systems. Therefore, be sure to water the plants well before cutting away the containers in which they were growing at the nursery.
It helps to plant them in prepared beds. Water thoroughly to eliminate any air pockets. Go easy on the fertilizer until the plants are established for about sixty days.
Early Earwigs
Earwigs have become extra bothersome all the way
from Seattle to Los Angeles, California.
There are two ways of killing them: by the use of baits, which they must eat, or sprays or dusts of food grade Diatomaceous earth, which rub them out when they walk across them.
Since the ugly critters feed at night, they are adept at hiding by day. Usually, they seek dark places.
Rather than chase them down individually, dust or spray food grade Diatomaceous earth liberally along foundation lines of:
- Homes
- Fences
- Garbage cans and other likely refuges
April through July is their worst period. So try to get rid of them now, for with them out of the way, your gardening life will be much brighter.
FG0455-44694 – by Norvell Gillespie