This week in your Massachusetts garden & landscape
Week of April 17, 2017
Do you use rocks to decorate your garden? If you don’t want to create an elaborate stone wall with the “gifts” we Massachusetts gardeners have been granted, and don’t want to haul them away either, consider creating a stone mosaic.
- Searching for good potting soil? The bag you choose should be relatively light. That means the mix has a good amount of perlite or Styrofoam in it. These are the white pellets you see in the potting soil. They are the most expensive ingredient but provide the necessary air pockets so the roots may “breath”. The smaller the pot, the more important they are.
- Are you an instant-gratification gardener? Grow radishes! Dig a shallow trench and place a row of seeds in the trench. Keep them close together, they won’t mind! In about 30 days, you’ll be able to harvest your radishes by popping them out of the ground, rinsing them off and taking a nice peppery bite.
- Now is the time to find the widest selection of fruit trees at your local garden center. Some fruit trees require 2 different varieties to insure pollination. Your local pro will know which ones are compatible.
- Even if you are not quite ready to begin a project, you may want to contact your local landscape professional soon, because their schedules fill up quickly. If you call at the end of May, you may have to wait.
Saturday is Earth Day! Help conserve water resources by using more mulch. How big is a yard of mulch? It’s a pile that would be 3 feet high, 3 feet wide, and 3 feet tall if it was a square. It covers 300 square feet about an inch deep. You can top-dress a previously-mulched bed with just an inch. New beds need at least 3 inches to suppress weeds and capture moisture.
