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Heirloom Garlic & Leeks in a Central Texas Garden |
- Prepare beds for planting flowers and vegetables. You may want to consider renting or buying a garden tiller to speed up the process; however, a strong back and a garden fork will still do an excellent job.
- For every 100 square feet of bed area, work in a several-inch layer of either compost, pine bark or sphagnum peat moss, plus 5 pounds of balanced fertilizer.
- Check with your local county agent for the average last killing freeze date for your area. Remember that killing freezes can occur after this date.
- Pruning of evergreens and summer flowering trees and shrubs should be completed in early March. Prune spring flowering trees and shrubs as soon as they finish blooming.
- Select and order caladium tubers as well as geranium and coleus plants for late April and early May planting. Do not plant caladiums until soil temperature reaches 70 F.
- As camellia and azalea plants finish blooming, fertilize them with three pounds of azalea-camellia fertilizer. Check mulch on azalea and camellia beds and add where needed.
- In North Texas there is still time to plant seeds of your favorite annuals in flats to be transplanted out-of-doors when danger of frost is past.
- Beware of close-out sales on bare-root trees and shrubs. The chance of survival is rather low on bare-root plants this late in the season. Your best bet at this time of year is to depend on container-grown or balled-and-burlapped plants for landscape use.
- Start hanging baskets of petunias and other annuals for another dimension in landscape color.
- Plant dahlia tubers in fertile, well-drained soil.
- Dig and divide summer and fall flowering perennials just before they initiate their spring growth.
Note: This material appeared in the web periodical Horticulture Update, Drs. William C. Welch and Douglas F. Welsh, Editors, Department of Extension Horticulture, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas