Neil Sperry: How to ensure garden, lawn survive the warm winter

OK, folks. You win.

I’ve been feeling like a mall cop holding back the crowd at a big Presidents Day mattress sale. I’ve been spinning, from conversation to phone call to a guy at church, answering scores of questions that have started with, “Neil, with this winter being so warm, don’t you think … ?”

Yes, this winter has been warm. I’ve never seen one even remotely like it. And yes, maybe some of the things we normally do well into March — well, maybe we need to march out and do them in February.

So unless something dramatic that I can’t see in my long-range forecasts blows into town, here is my new, once-in-a-lifetime adjusted schedule for late-winter, early-spring tasks.

Remember: This is only for 2016, so don’t cut this out of the newspaper and tack it up out in the garage.

▪ Finish planting cool-season vegetables now. You should already be completing the plantings of cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and Irish potatoes.

Those should have gone in last week, even in an average year. Which means you must finish them up in the next several days. But add to that list the leafy and root crops: leaf lettuce, spinach, radishes, turnips, carrots, etc. Sow them from seed now as well.

▪ Finish planting cool-season annual flowers. These are the plants that can handle frosts and light freezes, but that can’t handle the hot weather that begins to set in by late May and into June. That list includes petunias, larkspur, English daisies, sweet alyssum, stocks, snapdragons, ornamental chard and many other lesser-known sources of color.

▪ Finish all dormant-season transplanting — that is, any digging and relocating of established plants. You must get that done while they’re still dormant.

Once they start growing, your odds of success are greatly reduced. Remember, too, to thin these by 30 to 50 percent after the move, to compensate for the loss of roots in the process of transplanting them.

▪ Complete all winter pruning of shade trees, hopefully fruit trees (if they haven’t already budded out), grapevines, rosebushes (if they don’t have rose rosette virus, in which case they must be destroyed), evergreens, and summer-flowering vines and shrubs (but don’t top those crape myrtles!).

One special note to readers in areas known to be infested with oak wilt: It’s probably too late to prune at this point.

Pathologists tell us never to prune oaks while oak wilt mats are active on trees, and that would mean spring. Wait until mid-summer, once the hot weather causes the fungus to become inactive. Your certified arborist will be able to guide you.

▪ Scalp your lawn sooner rather than later. That’s the process by which we remove browned blades that were killed by those few winter freezes we had.

Set the mower down one or perhaps two notches. You’ll generate a huge amount of clippings, but don’t send them to the landfill. Instead, either compost them, or use them as mulch in shrub, flower and vegetable gardens.

And wear dust-tight goggles and a good respirator for this task. It’s an extremely dirty one.

▪ Move the application date for your pre-emergent herbicide up by seven to 10 days (Feb. 25-March 5 for this year only).

Soils are warmer than they usually are at this time, and if we don’t have a prolonged cold spell in the next few weeks, summertime weeds such as crabgrass and grassburs could germinate by mid-March.

Choose from Team, Dimension or Halts, and repeat your application 90 days after the first treatment for a prolonged season of weed prevention.

Remember that these pre-emergent weedkillers only control weeds as they try to germinate. The weeds you see in your lawn right now actually germinated last fall and early winter. Pre-emergent time for them would be the first week of September.

▪ If you have non-grassy weeds such as clover, dandelions, henbit and chickweed in your lawn, and if you want to remove them, apply a broadleafed weedkiller spray containing 2,4-D carefully to vigorous new growth.

Don’t mow for several days before or after you treat. Temperatures need to be near 70 degrees for a couple of days after you treat, and even then it will take the herbicide a couple of weeks to give you good control.

And please don’t confuse these with “weed-and-feed” products. It is far too early to be applying fertilizer, but it’s prime time for the weedkillers. Those combination products are seldom a good idea.

This story was originally published February 18, 2016 at 2:29 PM with the headline "Neil Sperry: How to ensure garden, lawn survive the warm winter."