April Landscape, Lawn & Garden Tips - Zone 8
Apply weed preventer to your lawn
It's winter and your lawn grass may be dormant but there are plenty of cool season weed seeds, such as Poa annua (annual bluegrass) and Henbit, getting ready to sprout in your lawn. To kill these seeds as they germinate you'll need to apply a lawn weed preventer. Most weed preventers are sold by how many sqaure feet of lawn area they will cover. So it's a good idea to measure your lawn to determine total square footage. To do so, simply measure and multiply the length by the width of your lawn. For example: if your lawn is 100' long and 50 feet wide the equation would look like this: 100' x 50' = 5,000 Total Square Feet.
SEE: Weed Prevention in Lawns
Transplant and relocate shrubs or trees
If there are some shrubs or small trees that you would like to transplant and relocate in your landscape the winter dormant season is a good time to do so. How do we know plants have gone dormant? When all the leaves have fallen from the trees we know the dormant season is here. Even in the Deep South all ornamental shrubs and trees have gone into dormancy.
NOTE: Some plants, such as established conifers and junipers, simply do not respond well to relocation.
SEE: Transplanting & Relocating A Shrub Or Tree
Prune certain shrubs and trees at this time
Caution: DO NOT prune spring flowering shrubs or trees such as Azaleas and Forsythias (Yellow Bells) until after they have finished their spring bloom cycle.
Caution: DO NOT prune perennial Lantana shrubs until you see new growth begins to emerge in mid spring.
Prepare vegetable garden soil for spring planting
January is a good time to prepare your vegetable garden soil for the upcoming spring planting season. If you do not make your own compost, most local nursery and garden centers carry products such as mushroom compost or composted cow manure that are good to replenish your garden soil with the rich organic matter necessary to successfully grow healthy vegetables. Turn at least 1/4-inch of organic matter into your garden soil.
SEE: How To Prepare Vegetable Garden Soil
Collect fallen leaves and add to compost pile or bin
Veteran gardeners swear by compost. It's unrivaled for adding readily available nutrients and beneficial bacteria to vegetable garden soil, or adding to the mix when planting shrubs, trees, perennials, annuals, and container plantings, promoting healthy and vigorous growth of plants. Plus, compost is an environmentally smart way to turn houslehold food waste and vegetative landscape and garden waste into something besides a bulge in your garbage bag. Making your own compost is very easy - simply pile up leaves, clippings, kitchen scraps and other materials into a heap, and turn the pile occasional to help the facilitate fermentation.
SEE: How to Make a Compost Pile or Bin
Plant shrubs and trees
Contrary to popular belief, January and, in fact, the entire winter season is a great time to plant most ornamental shrubs, trees, or groundcover plants in the South. Winter planting of most dormant shrubs and trees allows them acclimate to their new environment over the winter. In spring, winter-planted shrubs and trees will then benefit from the early-spring root flush. There is absoulutely no danger at all from planting most shrubs and trees in December. Professional landscape contractors plant through the entire winter!
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