After a long harsh winter, springtime is time to rejuvenate your garden and make sure it is ready for the time of year when you use it the most, summer. Owners of the best kept lawns know that work starts well before the sunshine begins.

The first thing to do when preparing your garden is to rake in thatch and any other solid matter that can clutter up the grass such as clippings and leaves. This can trap moisture in the soil and mould. You can make an exception based on the climate you live in but otherwise raking would have the best impact in autumn, ideally when you are raking up fallen leaves, you might also want to rake up any grass clippings when you mow.

If particular areas of grass have been subject to traffic and activity, such as a footpath or driveway, the soil will compact squeezing out all the air. This will suffer from excessive run-off and provide for a poor root bed for new grass to grow. To fix this you will need to aerate the area which can be done in a variety of ways ultimately perforating the surface of the soil. One fun way is to wear spiked shoes and walk up and down on the damaged area.

Everyone knows or practically everyone knows, that fall is the ideal time to get the lawn in shape for the winter. We gave ours an early feeding with fertilizer, and seeded some of the spots that had suffered during the summer. Black dirt was lightly sprinkled over the new seed, and it is surprising what a quick start and vigorous growth it made.

I don’t think our lawn has ever gone through the winter in better shape, and SOON it will get another light feeding. In spite of everything, there always seem to be a few spots that show up bare this time of year. I have to walk out over the lawn to find them, but they are there. Runners will fill many of these spots during the coming weeks, but I like to give them an assist.

Good seed is too expensive to waste. It doesn’t pay to sow anything but GOOD seed. Weeds will fill up the bare spots, without your sowing them. So, almost any time now, I’ll go over the lawn with a bucket of seed and a bucket of black dirt. (If you don’t have good weed-free black dirt you had better use peat moss, milled spagnum moss, or you can use vermiculite) .

Midwest January

During the January thaw is a good time to start fighting common chickweed. It is in flower now having germinated in September and October. Soon it will be setting ripening seed. Walk across the lawn now pulling out the chickweed plants by hand while their fresh green leaves are conspicuous against the brown soil.

Protecting Shallow Planted Tulips and Narcissus

The long unseasonable fall experienced in the Midwest last year encouraged growth of tulips and narcissus. During February thaws they will begin to peek through the soil. Before they get nipped by frost, cover the bed with 2 or 3 inches of peatmoss or compost. Next fall plant the bulbs deeper.

Watering Evergreens

Even if rain and snow have fallen recently, it would be wise to check the soil under the evergreens. In many places last falls drought left the subsoil extremely dry. The evergreens require moisture during the winter.

Dormant Spraying

Dormant sprays can be applied whenever the temperature remains above freezing for at least twelve hours. If the trees are subjected to freezing temperatures less than twelve hours after application of the spray, they will be injured when the emulsion of oil and sulfur separates.

Occasionally plants introduced to gardens like their conditions so well they spread like bad weeds. One of these Campanula rapunculodis the creeping bellflower, is very troublesome in gardens in both Montana and Wyoming and probably elsewhere, although I have gathered no reports.

It has become such a problem that weed specialists in Montana want to put it on the list of noxious weeds.

The flower spikes will range from three to four feet high above a more or less basal growing plant. The nodding flowers are deep violet. The leaves are described as rough and egg shaped tapering to a point. The base leaves have long stems, while those growing along the base of the flower spikes clasp the stalk closely.

H. Clifford Cook in his book Campanulas indicates that although this plant is quite beautiful, it should be restricted to the “wildest of wild gardens.” L. H. Bailey in “The Garden of Bellflowers” described the plant as a biennial. In Eurasia and North Africa this plant is apparently occasionally grown as a fall or winter vegetable. Because of a pungent, biting taste, the somewhat thickened roots and base leaves are used in salads.