Split Rock Landscaping, Gardening Tips

Early spring is a great time for transplanting trees and shrubs, but you must do so before they wake up. Transplanting a plant is a very traumatic experience for the plant if it is awake. It’s like doing surgery on a person while they are awake. Dormancy starts in the fall as soon as you experience a good hard freeze, and the plants remain dormant until the weather warms up in the spring. This is when you should transplant, while the plants are dormant. 

You can transplant in the spring up until the plants leaf out. When the buds are green and swollen you are usually safe to still transplant, but once the leaf develops, you should wait until fall. When transplanting you can dig the shrubs out bare root, just make sure they are out of the ground for as short a time as possible, and keep the roots damp while out of the ground. 

Make sure there are no air pockets around the roots when you replant them. When possible, it is always better to dig a ball of earth with the plants when you transplant them. The rule of thumb is 12” of root ball for every 1” of stem caliper. If the diameter of the stem of a tree is 2”, then you should dig a root ball 24” in diameter. 

Don’t be afraid of cutting a few roots when you transplant. Just try not to cut them any shorter than the above guidelines allow. Cutting the roots will actually help to reinvigorate the plant. It’s a process simply known as root pruning. When the roots are severed, the plant then develops lateral roots to make up for what is lost. These lateral roots are more fibrous in nature, and have more ability to pick up water and nutrients. 

Some nurseries drive tractors over the plants in the field with a device that under cuts the roots of the plant just to force the plant to develop more fibrous roots. This make transplanting the plant the following year much more successful, and makes for a stronger and healthier plant. 

The old timers root pruned by hand by forcing a spade in the ground around their plants. If you have a plant in your landscape that is doing poorly, a little root pruning while the plant is dormant could bring it around. It’s worth the effort.

Michael J. McGroarty is the author of this article. Article provided by, http://gardening-articles.com
Visit his most interesting website, http://www.freeplants.com and sign up for his excellent gardening newsletter.

Posted by Split Rock Landscaping at 11:30 AM | Permalink

Summer gardening tips . . .

Don't be afraid to trim those flowering shrubs and trees that need it. Failure to prune is probably the biggest gardening mistake a person can make. I spent 20 years landscaping homes and businesses, and I watched people make the investment in my services, then they failed to prune when the plants needed it, and before you know it their landscape looks terrible. 

If you make a mistake pruning, don't worry about it. It's like a bad haircut, it will grow out. Of course use common sense and read the previous articles that I've written on pruning. 

Summer gardening tips . . .

Along with summer time comes high humidity. High humidity can cause a lot of problems with the plants in your garden and around your house. One of the simple things you can do is don't water just before dark. Make sure your plants are nice and dry when you tuck them in for the night and you can cut down of the chance fungus being a problem. 

One of the more common fungi that I get asked about a lot is powdery mildew. This appears as a white film on the leaves of ornamental plants. Dogwoods and Purple Sandcherry are often the victim of powdery mildew. Powdery mildew isn't extremely harmful to the plants, it's just that the foliage is damaged, and little growing takes place once it sets in. Your local garden center will have a general fungicide you can spray if you'd like to try and control it. Usually once the plant defoliates in the fall the plant is back to normal. 

Summer gardening tips . . .

If you have Perennial Rye Grass in your lawn, and you probably do if you're in the north, you must be careful not to leave your grass wet at night. There is a fungus known as Pythium Blight that appears in very humid conditions. This fungus attacks and kills perennial rye grasses. Here in the north most of our lawns are a blend of fescues, perennial ryes, and Kentucky Blue Grass. 

If you have problems with pythium blight you will lose the perennial rye grass in large areas of your lawn, and even though the other grasses will still be there and fill in, your lawn will have areas that are much darker green than the rest of the lawn because you will then have concentrations of Kentucky Blue grass. 

You can see this fungus in the early morning. It looks like white cotton candy laying on top of your lawn. It usually appears along walks and driveways where the soil is the wet if you have been watering.  To prevent pythium blight water as early in the day as possible.

Summer gardening tips . . .

Another nasty little blight that likes summer time is Fire Blight. Fire Blight attacks ornamentals, especially Apple trees, Crabapple trees, Cotoneasters, and Pyracantha. You know you have Fire Blight when a branch on one of your plants dies and turns almost red. The leaves usually hang on but turn reddish brown. The damage usually starts out near the end of the branch and works it's way toward the main stem of the plant. There is little you can do except prune out the affected branch, cutting it as far back as possible. 

Fire Blight is very contagious to plants so you should burn the branches you prune out. You should also dip or wash your pruning shears in rubbing alcohol after each cut to keep from spreading this deadly fungus.

Summer gardening tips . . .

Unfortunately, I've got one more summer time culprit to warn you about. It's a handy little fungus that grows in mulch. Actually there are all kinds of fungi that tend to grow in mulches, and most of them are really disgusting looking. But this little gem is unique in the fact that as it grows it tends to swell. Then somehow it manages to explode, and it will spatter your house with tiny brown specs. The experts have appropriately named this one “Shotgun Fungus”. Isn't that a cute name? 

These tiny little brown specs will fly as high as eight feet into the air, and once they stick to your house or windows, they stick like glue. I know that right now there are people hollering across the house at their spouse, “Hey, remember those brown specs all over the house? I know what they are. It's from the mulch!” Tell me I'm wrong, but I know I'm not. 

A lot of people are victims of this nasty little fungus, but they don't know it. All they know is that there are tiny brown specs on the house that look like paint. So far they have blamed everything from spiders to aliens. 

There's not a lot you can do to prevent this fungus. I have found that if you keep the mulch loose so air can circulate it is less likely to grow fungi. Don't just keep adding layer after layer to the mulch around your house. You should skip at least every other year and just loosen the mulch you already have down. If you loosen it and then rake it flat it will look like you've just mulched.  Mulch is great, just don't let it get packed down hard.  Loosen it up at least once a year.
 

Michael J. McGroarty is the author of this article. Article provided by, http://gardening-articles.com
Visit his most interesting website, http://www.freeplants.comand sign up for his excellent gardening newsletter. 

Posted by Split Rock Landscaping at 11:23 AM | Permalink

Spring means that the garden centers are packed with people, and car trunks are packed with plants. Everybody has dirt on their knees, dirt under their nails, and are excited about gardening. To make certain that this excitement yields positive results, let's discuss the basics in this article of spring planting tips. 

Installing new plants and having them grow successfully is not difficult, nor is it as complicated as some would have you think. Is it as easy as just digging a hole and setting the plant in? Yes, it certainly can be. I won't get into bed preparation, as I have covered that in other articles that are available at http://www.freeplants.com

 Let's start with B&B plants. B&B is short for balled in burlap. Closely examine the ball on the plant that you have purchased. Did the diggers wrap twine around the ball to hold the plant secure? If they did, you should at least cut the twine and lay it in the bottom of the hole, or remove it completely. Pay close attention around the stem of the plant where it emerges from the root ball, as diggers often wrap the twine around the stem several times as they tie the ball. This is extremely important because if the string is nylon, it will not rot and will girdle and kill the plant two or three years from now. 

When B&B plants are stored in the nursery for extended periods of time it becomes necessary to re-burlap them if the bottom starts to rot before the plants are sold. If the plant that you buy has been re-burlaped it is possible that there could be nylon stings between the two layers of burlap, check the stem carefully. As long as the nylon string is removed from around the stem of the plant, it is actually harmless around the rest of the ball, and you do not have to remove it. 

Is the root ball wrapped in genuine burlap, or imitation burlap made of a non-biodegradable plastic material? 

Genuine burlap will rot quickly underground and does not have to be disturbed before planting. If you're not sure or suspect a poly type burlap, you don't have to remove it completely, but should loosen it around the stem of the plant and cut some vertical slices around the circumference of the ball. 

More spring planting tips . . .

Now here's the critical part. What kind of soil are you planting in? 

If your soil is heavy clay, I highly suggest that your raise the planting bed at least 8” with good rich topsoil. If you can't do that for some reason, install the plant so that at least 2” or more of the root ball is above the existing grade and mound the soil over the root ball. Keep in mind that plants installed this way could dry out over the summer, but planting them flush with the ground in heavy clay can mean that the roots will be too wet at other times of the year. 

The “experts” suggest that when planting in clay soil you dig the hole wider and deeper than the root ball and fill around and under the plant with loose organic material. That sounds like a really great idea doesn't it? Some of these experts also recommend that you dig the hole extra deep and put a few inches of gravel in the bottom for drainage. Where do you suppose they think this water is going to “drain” to? 

Keep in mind that most B&B plants are grown in well drained soil. That means that the soil in the root ball is porous and water can easily pass through. Now imagine if you will, a root ball about 15” in diameter, setting in a hole 30” diameter. All around and under that root ball is loose organic matter. Inside of that root ball is porous soil. Now along comes Mother Nature with a torrential downpour. There is water everywhere, and it is not going to soak into that hard packed clay soil, so it is just flowing across the top of the ground searching for the lowest point. 

When it reaches our newly planted tree surrounded by loose organic matter, it is going to seep in until the planting hole is completely full of water. (Remember my article on getting rid of standing water and the French drain system?) By using this planting technique we have actually created a French drain around our poor little plant that can not tolerate it's roots being without oxygen for long periods of time. Because the bottom of this hole is clay, even though we've added gravel for drainage, there is nowhere for the water to go, and this plant is going to suffer and likely die. 

If you can not raise the planting bed with topsoil, and are planting in clay soil, I recommend that you install the root ball at least 2” above grade and backfill around the ball with the soil that you removed when you dug the hole. Backfilling with the clay soil that you removed is actually like building a dam to keep excess water from permeating the root ball of your newly planted tree. The plant is not going to thrive in this poor soil, but at least it will have a chance to survive. 

More spring planting tips . . .

Once again, raising the bed with good rich topsoil is the best thing you can do to keep your plants healthy and happy.

No matter what kind of soil you have, be careful not to install your plants too deep. They should never be planted any deeper than they were grown in the nursery. Planting too deep is a common problem, and thousands of plants are killed each year by gardeners who just don't understand how critical planting depth is. 

Staking newly planted trees is always a good idea. If your new tree constantly rocks back and forth when the wind blows it will have a very difficult time establishing new roots into the existing soil. Stabilize the tree with a stake. You can use a wooden stake, a fence post, or for small trees I often use 1/2” electro magnetic tubing, (conduit), available at any hardware store. 

You can secure the tree to the stake with a single wrap of duct tape. In about six months or a year the sun will dry the glue on the duct tape and it will fall off. Check the tape to make sure that it has fallen off. You don't want to girdle the tree with the tape. 

More spring planting tips . . .

Container grown plants are much easier. Follow the rules for depth of planting as described earlier. Before gently removing the plant from the container check the drain holes in the bottom of the container for roots that might be growing out the holes. If so cut them off so they will not make it difficult to get the plant out of the container. 

The easiest way to remove the plant from the container is to place your hand over the top of the container and turn it completely upside down and give it a gentle shake. The plant should slide right into your hand. 

Examine the root mass as you hold it in your hand. Sometimes when plants have been growing in a container for a long time the roots start to grow in a circular pattern around the root mass. This is not good, and you should disturb these roots before planting so you can break this circular pattern. You can take a knife and actually make about three vertical slices from the top of the root mass to the bottom. This will stimulate new roots that will grow outward into the soil of your garden. Or you can just take your fingers and loosen the roots that are circling the root mass and force them outward before you plant them. 

What about fertilizer, bone meal, peat moss, and all those other additives they are going to try and sell you at the garden center? 

Raise your planting beds with good rich topsoil and forget about the additives. Be very careful with fertilizers, they can do more harm than good. I landscaped my house 14 years ago and I haven't got around to fertilizing the plants yet, and have no intention of doing so. They look great. 

As far as bone meal and all those other soil additives are concerned, don't get too caught up in all that stuff. The only thing that I know for sure is that they will make your wallet thinner, but I don't think you'll see a difference in your plants. Over the years I've landscaped several hundred homes with fantastic results, and I never added any of these additives to my planting beds.

Did I mention planting in good rich topsoil?  That's the secret!

Michael J. McGroarty is the author of this article. Article provided by, http://gardening-articles.com
Visit his most interesting website, http://www.freeplants.com and sign up for his excellent gardening newsletter. 

Posted by Split Rock Landscaping at 11:18 AM | Permalink

Flower bulbs need a good, long, winters sleep. Like some people we know, if they wake up before they are fully rested, they get kind of cranky, and then they don’t bloom well at all. 

Actually what happens is during a mild winter, the soil stays too warm, and the bulbs begin to come out of dormancy early. They start to grow, and once the tips emerge above the soil line, they are subject to freezing if the temperatures dip back down below freezing. And that’s usually what happens. After the bulbs have emerged, they freeze and then don’t bloom at all, or if they do it’s a very sad display. 

Another reason this happens is because the bulbs are not planted deep enough. They may have been deep enough when you planted them, but as the soil goes through the freezing and thawing process, the bulbs can actually work their way up in the ground. One way to keep your flower bulbs sleeping longer, which will protect them from freezing, is to mulch the bed. 

In the fall just apply a 3-4” layer of well composted mulch. This layer of mulch will do a couple of things. It will maintain a higher moisture content in the soil, which is good, as long as the soil isn’t too soggy. Well composted mulch also adds valuable organic matter to the planting bed. Organic matter makes a great natural fertilizer. 

A 3-4” layer of mulch also acts as an insulator. It will keep the soil from freezing for a while, which is good because you don’t want the bulbs going through a series of short cycles of freezing and thawing. Then when the temperatures drop below freezing and stay there for a while, the soil does eventually freeze. Then the mulch actually works in reverse and keeps the soil from thawing out too early. Keeping it in a frozen state is actually good because the bulbs remain dormant for a longer period of time. 

When they finally do wake up it is spring time, and hopefully by the time they emerge from the ground the danger of a hard freeze is past and they will not be damaged. If you can keep them from freezing, they will flower beautifully. The extra organic matter will help to nourish the bulbs when they are done blooming, and the cycle starts all over again. 

We also plant annual flowers in the same beds with our spring bulbs. By the time the danger of frost is past and it’s time to plant the annuals, the top of the bulbs have died back and are ready to be removed. The mulch that is added in the fall also helps to nourish the annual flowers, as well as improve the soil permanently. Anytime you add well composted organic matter to your planting beds, you are bound to realize multiple benefits. The key words here are “well composted”. Fresh material is not good.

Michael J. McGroarty is the author of this article.  Article provided by, http://gardening-articles.com
Visit his most interesting website, http://www.freeplants.com and sign up for his excellent gardening newsletter. 

Posted by Split Rock Landscaping at 11:07 AM | Permalink

Having an ample supply of good rich compost is the gardeners' dream. 
It has many uses, and all of those uses will result in nicer plants.  However, composting can be time consuming and hard work.  I place a reasonable value on my time, so spending hours and hours turning compost piles doesn’t qualify as a worthwhile exercise, at least in my book.  Nonetheless, I do compost, but I do so on my terms.  

I built two composting bins.  Each bin is five feet wide, five feet deep, and four feet high.  I built the bins by sinking 4” by 4” posts in the ground for the corners, and then nailed 2 by 4’s and 1 by 4’s, alternating on the sides.  
I left 2” gaps between the boards for air circulation.  The 2 by 4’s are rigid enough to keep the sides from bowing out, and in between each 2 by 4 I used 1 by 4’s to save a little money.  The bins are only 3 sided, I left the front of the bins open so they can be filled and emptied easily.  Photos of my compost bins are on this page:  Click here.

I started by filling just one of the bins.  I put grass clippings, dried leaves, and shrub clippings in the bins.  I try not to put more than 6” of each material on a layer.  You don’t want 24” of grass clippings in the bin, you should alternate layers of green and brown material.  If necessary, keep a few bags of dry leaves around so you can alternate layers of brown waste and green waste. 

When we root cuttings we use coarse sand in the flats, so when it’s time to pull the rooted cuttings out of the flats, the old sand goes on the compost pile.  In our little backyard nursery we also have some plants in containers that do not survive.  Rather than pulling the dead plant and the weeds out of the container, and then dumping the potting soil back on the soil pile, we just dump the whole container in the compost bin. This adds more brown material to the mix, and is a lot easier than separating the soil and the weeds.

Once the bin is full, the rules of composting say that you should turn the material in the bin every few weeks.  There is no way that I have time to do that, so this is what I do.  I pack as much material in the bin as I can, before I start filling the second bin.  I pile the material as high as I possibly can, and even let it spill out in front of the bin.  Then I cover all the fresh material with mulch or potting soil, whatever brown material I can find.  

Then when I’m out working in the garden I set a small sprinkler on top of the pile and turn it on very low, so a small spray of water runs on the material.  Since I have a good water well, this doesn’t cost me anything, so I let it run for at least two hours as often as I can.  This keeps the material damp, and the moisture will cause the pile to heat up, which is what makes the composting action take place. 

Once I have the first bin completely full, I start using the second bin.  As the material in the first bin starts to break down, it will settle, and the bin is no longer heaped up, so I just keep shoveling the material that I piled in front of the bin, up on top of the pile, until all the material is either in the bin or piled on top of the heap.  Then I just leave it alone, except to water it once in a while.  The watering isn’t necessary, it just speeds the process.

Because I don’t turn the pile, I can’t expect all of the material to rot completely.  The material in the center is going to break down more than the material on the edges, but most of it does break down quite well.  The next step works great for me because I’ve got a small nursery, so I keep a pile of potting soil on hand at all times.  But you can really do the same thing by just buying two or three yards of shredded mulch to get started, and piling it up near your compost bins.  If you do this, you will always have a supply of good compost to work with.

Shredded bark, left in a pile will eventually break down and become great compost.  The potting soil that I use is about 80% rotted bark.  I make potting soil by purchasing fine textured, and dark hardwood bark mulch, and I just put it in a pile and let it rot.  The secret is to keep the pile low and flat, so that it does not shed the rain water away. You want the mulch to stay as wet as possible, this will cause it to break down fairly quickly.

So I keep a pile of rotted bark mulch near my compost bins.  When both bins are completely full, I empty the bin containing the oldest material by piling it on top of my rotted bark mulch.  I make sure the pile of rotted mulch is wide and 
flat on top so that when I put the material from the compost bin on top of the pile, the compost material is only 5 to 10 inches thick.  

My mulch pile might be 12’ wide, but it may only be 24 to 30 inches high.  Once I have all the compost on top of the pile, then I go around the edge of the pile with a shovel, and take some of the material from the edges of the pile and toss it up on top of the pile, covering the compost with at least 6” of rotted bark.  This will cause the compost material to decompose the rest of the way.

Once you get this system started, you never want to use all of the material in the pile.  Always keep at least 2 to 3 cubic yards on hand so you’ve got something to mix with your compost.  If you use a lot of compost material like I do, then you should buy more material and add to your pile in the late summer or fall, once you are done using it for the season.  

Around here many of the supply companies sell a compost material that is already broken down quite well.  This is what I buy to add to my stock pile.  But I try to make sure that I have at least 3 yards of old material on hand, then I’ll add another 3 yards of fresh material to that.  Then in the spring I’ll empty one of the compost bins and add the compost to the top of the pile.

The pile of usable compost will be layers of material, some more composted than others.  Kind of like a sandwich.  So what I do is chip off a section of the pile from the edge, spread it out on the ground so it’s only about 8” deep, then 
run over it with my small rototiller.  This mixes it together perfectly, and I shovel it onto the potting bench.

Having a pile of rotted compost near your compost bins is great because if you have a lot of leaves or grass clippings, you can throw some rotted compost in the bin in order to maintain that layered effect that is necessary in order for the composting process to work well.

Sure this process is a little work, but it sure is nice to have a place to get rid of organic waste any time I like.  Then down the road when I have beautiful compost to add to my potting soil, I am grateful to have done the right thing 
earlier, and I know that I have wasted nothing.

Michael J. McGroarty is the author of this article.  Article provided by, http://gardening-articles.com
Visit his most interesting website, http://www.freeplants.com and sign up for his excellent gardening newsletter. 

Posted by Split Rock Landscaping at 10:58 AM | Permalink