There are 3 main tasks you can accomplish in early/mid-February to help your garden get a great start for spring. Over the next few weeks, there will be several other garden to-dos to take care of (pruning many types of plants being one of them), but today, we are sharing the 3 main gardening tasks right now:
Using horticultural oil
Amending your soil if needed
Adding a fresh layer of mulch (if you aren't planning to plant this spring)
Horticultural Oil:
As spring nears, it's the perfect time to use horticultural oil. Also known as dormant oil, horticultural oil is used at this time of the year (in late winter/ early spring) as an effective, all-natural insecticide to help keep insects at bay (especially insects that will damage plants). It's also useful to eradicate mites and scale.
We use horticultural oil on nearly all of our outdoor plants here at the nursery and love it because it is all-natural, organic, and doesn't hurt our pollinators. We always try to protect and grow our pollinator population here at the nursery. Horticultural oil is also safe to spray around children and pets.
Horticultural oil can be used on all plants in your landscape and will give your gardening beds an early layer of protection against insects that overwinter in the leaves and brush under your plants. Such insects include aphids, mealybugs, mites, leafhoppers, and eggs and nymphs. Using horticultural oil on outdoor plants will help you use insecticides much less later in summer. It is especially essential to use horticultural oil if you have fruit trees.
To spray, pick a day (morning is the best time to spray) where we do not have any rain projected in the forecast for several days. Also, choose a day where temperatures are mild. You do not want to spray on a day that it is hot or you can burn the leaves of the plant. Follow the directions on the back label and spray on leaves or stems, under foliage, and on the ground right around the plant. You only need to spray once during the year, so this is not an application you will repeat several times throughout spring or summer.
We offer horticultural oil here at the nursery.
Also, at this time of the year, you can:
Add fresh mulch if you aren't planting in a gardening bed this spring. Or wait, and add fresh mulch after you've planted this spring, before summer's heatwave.
Use late winter as a time to come by the garden center and have your gardening questions answered. We're here to help.