Opening of the gardening season – gardeners’ recommendations on where to start / Article

Spring is already kicking around at the shed door and she is impatiently waiting for the garden work to really start, but Kaminska emphasized that the garden work in her yard started much earlier this year than in other years.

“If you compare to last year, when there was still snow and everything was frozen, this year is the perfect time for cutting fruit trees. There have been years when it is cold and you have to start other work, but now you can cut and shape, because you can very well see drier branches.

But if we cut now, then we remember to cut out those water branches later in the summer,” said Kaminska.

The gardener also reminded that attention should be paid to the currently fashionable perennial grasses – they also need to be pruned, and this should be done by the end of March, at the latest by Easter.

“If we talk about Chinese miscanthus, it is imperative to prune them, and it is necessary to prune them with the ground, without leaving any lumps, stumps, because if we leave these stumps, we will eventually have an empty middle, which would not be desirable,” advised Kaminska.

The same goes for cisas and molinia. If perennial grasses are pruned later, there is a risk of pruning and damaging their young buds as well, so this is a job that should not be put off.

Meanwhile, for example, it is too early to cut David’s buddleia, because it is not yet possible to recognize the new buds that should be left after cutting. The same with roses, but if the tips of the roses are severely frosted and black, they can be carefully cut off.

In order to stick to a plan, Rožukalne recommended dividing the spring pruning work into stages: start with fruit trees and berry trees, then continue with decorative bushes and leave all the spruces last, except for firs, because they had to be pruned already in the cold.

“Here, these are the three stages by which to plan the work. You should also look and plan in your head which are the flowering bushes in the spring, they are not touched now, but those that bloom on the other side of the summer, in the fall, are pruned now. Let there be some kind of plan , because there is so much work that, when you go out into the garden, your mind just goes crazy, you feel that you have to do everything,” said Rožukalne.

Kaminska said that in places in Latvia where there is sandy soil, the ground has loosened enough to start planting, but it should be taken into account that everything planted will have to be watered carefully, because the sandy soil dries out quickly in the spring sun.

In the meantime, it might still be too early to sow grass in places where it is needed, because the seeds need a little warmer weather, +10, +15 degrees, to germinate. However, the lawn can now be scraped with a rake to get rid of snow mold.

In order to take care of fruit trees in time and protect them from pest attacks, it is important to stir up the soil around the tree trunks. The so-called sticky belts can be stuck on the trees themselves – for ants and all other insects that will wake up and go up the tree.

“But not only about pests, but also about diseases. At the moment, while the buds have not yet bloomed and the fruit trees are leafless, they should be treated with copper preparations. We mix copper with lime – this would be desirable for all fruit trees, including the same roses . It would be preventive against diseases, but nothing would be sprayed preventively against pests,” explained Kaminska.

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