May 2010 Gardening Checklist

• Mulch time. The soil has warmed and dried enough now that adding a layer of wood or bark mulch won’t encourage lingering cold wetness. Apply Preen Mulch Plus – its color lasts all season long, and it will prevent weeds for up to 6 months. If you’ve already got an inch or two of mulch remaining, top it off with Preen Mulch Plus so you end up with no more than 3 inches around trees and shrubs and no more than 2 inches around perennials.
• Immediately after blooming, prune spring-flowering trees and shrubs such as deutzia, rhododendron, azalea, mock orange, pieris, lilac, viburnum, weigela, beautybush, fringe tree and quince.
• Once all danger of frost is gone, plant tender vegetables and annual flowers, such as tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, petunias, marigolds, zinnias and celosia. It’s also time to plant tender summer bulbs, such as callas, dahlias, caladium and gladioli.
• Plant containers, window boxes and hanging baskets. Besides adding new annual flowers from the garden center, consider digging up and using divisions of coralbells, hosta, foamybells, lamium and other perennials with good-looking foliage.
• Cut spring-bulb foliage after it browns or at least begins to yellow -- never before. Also don’t tie or braid foliage. Green leaves are needed to manufacture sugars that the bulb needs to store and use for next year’s flowering. It’s OK, however, to remove spent flower stalks as soon as the blooms are done.