Good Gardening Practices

One of my favorite and most often used gardening books is called The Mid-South Garden Guide.  It was published for the Memphis Garden Club in 1984. One of the many reasons this book has become one of my favorites is for the month by month gardening guide.  The book lists each month and gives direction for good gardening practices:  planting, pruning, fertilizing and which plants are blooming.  Here is February's gardening guide.

• The first big job of the month is to get a dormant spray on the garden.  This is the most important spray of the year!
• Fertilize roses
• Prune evergreens
• Blooming:  crocus, early daffodils, helleborus (Lenten rose) hyacinth, pansy, snowdrop, violet, flowering quince, forsythia, pussy willow, spirea and winter jasmine

While most of the United States is digging out from a record breaking snow, the temps in the mid south have been mild and spring like.  So.  .  . out came the gardening gloves and tools.  While the trees on the back of our property line provide shade, they also provide many leaves.  I always seem to be raking leaves and cleaning out beds.  The chick weed is in abundance.  Am applying Preem (a pre emergent weed killer) in hopes of getting a jump on the weeds.  I dug up the diseased rose and have sprayed-sprayed-sprayed the other roses with a dormant rose spray in hopes the rose rosette disease does not spread.  My gardening guy says "spray roses before they start showing signs of any disease." 

March 1st is Friday and the gardening guide says:  March, with its lavish display of daffodils and flowering trees, is one of the most beautiful months of the year.  It is also one of the busiest!  Good thing AppleJack bought me new gardening gloves and has dusted off the tools.