Things to do in February:
- Preemerge your beds and turf areas. Kill weeds now before they begin to compete with your turf or plants. Preemergent products kill weed seeds as they germinate, never allowing them to grow, compete with your plants and reproduce. This is the easiest way to control small seeded annual weeds in a landscape.
- Take a soil test and get a custom program now. By knowing exactly what your yards nutritional requirements are, you can apply fertilizers and soil amendments in the most environmentally friendly way. When you have a custom program you will not be applying excessive amounts of fertilizer which will end up in the marsh or storm drainage. This also saves you money by putting out exactly what your lawn/shrubs need and will help you get the desired results.
- Spread SeaHume G throughout your lawn and beds. This product will increase fertilizer efficiency, improve fertilizer up-take, helps retain nitrate nitrogen in the soil for less leaching, helps prevent nutrient tie-up, improves soil biology, and improves soil moisture retention. All of these factors will reduce the loss of fertilizer through runoff. This is a good product when you get the springtime itch to put something out when it is still too early to fertilize with nitrogen products.
- Control winter weeds in your yard now! Weeds are easiest to kill when they are actively growing (vegetative stage). Winter weeds will begin to flower (reproductive stage) soon. Systemic herbicides like Weed Free Zone need to translocate in the plant, and they do this best while the plant is actively growing. Kill the weeds now because once they are flowering, plants do not translocate herbicides as well.
- Get your lawn mower ready for spring mowing season. A new air filter, blade, spark plug and possibly new gas and oil if you had a chance to rest it this winter. These would be the minimum requirements. Beat the lines at your local mower shop. Try to avoid ethanol gas for your small engines (boats, mowers, gas powered hand tools).
- Finish up any lingering landscape duties from the winter. If you have any transplanting to do, get on in right away. Redesign any bed lines to accommodate any plants that have matured over the years. Any bed lines that are not as smooth as they used to be need to be re-cut. If you have any new plants, now is the time to get them in the ground before the summer heat.
- Kill the moles with Mole Patrol before they mate in April. This will keep their populations down.
- Prune your hybrid tea roses back mid-February. SeaHume, Messenger, and Cotton Burr Compost will really help your rose blooms. Try some Lime / Sulfur spray before they leaf out to control disease.
- Resist the temptation to butcher your Crepe Myrtles. Crepe Myrtles are trees and should not be topped. You can prune interior rubbing limbs, dead limbs or crossing branches. Prune before they use the energy to leaf out on limbs you are going to remove.
- Sharpen your pruners and other hand tools.
Always read, understand and follow product label. The product label is a Federal Law.
