April showers bring April chores

Spring has sprung here in middle Georgia and gardening efforts are full speed ahead. Let’s explore some gardening tasks for the month of April.

April is a good time to fertilize all shrubs and trees, deciduous and evergreen, which are beginning to produce tender new growth. For specimen trees, a good rule of thumb is to apply two to four pounds of complete fertilizer per inch of trunk diameter. Remember to broadcast it all the way out to the tree’s drip line. Shrubs in beds would benefit from two to four pounds per 100 square feet or one-half to one pound per shrub, depending on plant size.

Fertilize azaleas immediately after they have finished blooming. Use a camellia-azalea (acid-forming) fertilizer and water in well. Take care not to get any on the stems, as azaleas are easily injured by fertilizer burn. To remove the faded flowers from your azaleas, try sweeping over them gently with a soft broom. It’s a quick and easy job and results in a more manicured-looking plant.

During the peak blooming period of roses over the month of April, be sure to fertilizer them well in order to stimulate new growth and extend their flowering period. Try to avoid wetting the leaves if possible to discourage black spot disease, the number one problem of roses. Watch for aphids, another rose nemesis.

As rose blossoms fade and petals fall after the first big surge of spring blooms, remove the spent flowers. This procedure, called deadheading, prevents the plant from using its energy reserves to produce needless seeds and encourages the production of additional leaves and stems and thus more flowers. The correct way to accomplish this task is not to simply pull off the flower heads but to make a clean cut with scissors or shears just above the second five-leaflet leaf, counting from the flower down. Cuts made higher on the branch will often result in inferior shoots or misshapen flowers. Cuts made lower on the branch will remove new growth buds and prevent their development. Follow this same rule when cutting fresh rose flowers.

Prune flowering shrubs such as forsythia, flowering quince, spirea, and azaleas just after they finish blooming. If shrubs are overgrown and unhealthy-looking, they can be rejuvenated by severe pruning. Remove one-third of the oldest wood (by thinning) and cut the remaining stems to a height of about 12 inches. Do this for the following two or three years and you will create a healthy, vigorous plant once again.

If planting newly purchased blueberry plants, it is best not to fertilize them during the first year. Fertilize lightly in April, June, and September beginning in the second year and in each year thereafter.

After planting tomatoes, it is wise to mulch them right away. This will help to prevent leaf diseases such as early blight. This debilitating disease is caused by a soil-borne fungus that splashes onto the leaves from the soil during rainfall or overhead irrigation. Control of this disease with fungicides is difficult. Prevention by mulching is much more effective.

Fertilize pecans this month. Apply one pound of 10-10-10 per inch of trunk diameter. Do this again in June.

Remove the suckers from apple, pear, and peach trees during April. Suckers are those juvenile-looking sprouts which seem to arise out of nowhere on the lower trunks of these trees.

Tim Lewis is a Georgia Green Industry Association Certified Plant Professional, gardening writer, former Perry High School horticulture instructor, and former horticulturist at Henderson Village and Houston Springs. He and his wife, Susan, own and operate Lewis Farms Nursery located on Hwy 26 two miles east of Elko, where he was born and raised. He can be reached at (478)954-1507 or timlewis1@windstream.net and at LewisFarmsNursery.com.

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