May Garden To-Do List

May 6, 2013 | By webadmin

Here are a few tips to help you keep on top of your gardening list for the month of May:

• Give the GIFT OF GREEN for your Mom on Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 12. What a better surprise than a custom garden design? How about garden maintenance service? Give us a call and we'll help you score major points with mom!
  
  
• Plant warm season bulbs like caladiums and summer annuals such as zinnias, marigolds, purslane, moss rose, pentas and lantana.
  
  
• Plant perennials, herbs and warm-season vegetables. Try more drought tolerant perennials such as red yucca, turk’s cap, Mexican petunia. flame Acanthus, copper canyon daisy,  Zexmenia, or skullcaps . We can incorporate these easy-to-grow beauties into your garden design.
  
  
• Amend your beds with compost before you plant and add slow release fertilizer to new plantings. Mulch all new plantings.
  
  
• Fertilize all established plants, containers and shrubs. Add root stimulator to new plants to help them establish new roots before the onset of summer.
  
  
• Prune spring blooming shrubs and vines such as confederate jasmine vine, Indian hawthorn shrubs, hydrangea and azaleas after they have finished blooming.
  
  
• Pest Control: Release Lady Bugs which you can find at retail nurseries. Use horticultural oil or insecticidal soap for mealy bugs, spider mites, scale and thrips.
  
  
• Disease Management: Spray for control of fungal diseases such as black spot and powdery mildew, typically found on roses.  Have a pest or disease you can't identify? Give your RLI sales person a call and we'll take care of you!