Clean Your Garden For Spring

Spring house-cleaning, if you happen to be a gardener, should not be restricted to your home. It should continue out into your garden, which, alter all is an outdoor living room. Keep in mind that your plants will be happier, and healthier, in a clean and wholesome environment. In addition, your entire landscape will assume a "well dressed" appearance.

Getting things in order and keeping them that way is certainly one of the most important essentials of good housekeeping. This principle is as true in the garden as it is in the home. Almost every locality is subject to a certain amount of wind. It may be Just a light breeze but forceful enough to move small fragments of refuse, depositing them in your garden. Debris that is dropped In corners of your garden will probably remain unless you move them yourself. A few sweeps of a bamboo rake should solve this problem in no time.

This is also an excellent time for attaching the loose ends of vines to an adequate support. Many of these plants, with the approach of warmer weather, will be entering their active growing season. Unless properly trellised, they very quickly may become topheavy; then if a wind comes up they may be ripped to shreds. Further, vines that hang in a sloppy manner are certainly not very attractive; plant ties that are weatherized and easy to handle are now available at most garden supply stores. For just a few cents you can buy a quantity of them sufficient to last a whole season.

One of the most important house-cleaning jobs in your garden consists of getting rid of weeds. This chore, formerly looked upon with disgust, has now been made comparatively easy by selective weed killers. Today you can spray a lawn with a selective weed killer which will kill the weeds but prove non-injurious to the grass plants. So there is no longer any reason for having thousands of weeds cluttering up your lawn, proving an eyesore and depriving your grass plants of their necessary food and drink.

A grass shear and a lawn edger are two important tools for cleaning up your garden. Lawns that creep beyond their regular confines, trespassing across the sidewalk are definitely a bad eyesore. A lawn edger will take care of them in no time and it should be used each time after the lawn is cut. Also if you have trees in your lawn the watering basins should be clearly outlined. Use a hand grass clipper for this purpose.

Spraying or dusting at regular Intervals is also part of your spring garden-cleaning program. During the active growing season you should keep after the bugs about once every seven or 10 days. Also, prune back hedges that have lost their good looks; cut off flowers before they become full blown and go to seed; and apply sufficient food and water so your plants will look fresh and healthy.