Spring Garden Cleanup
Ornamental Grasses, Roses, Trees, Perennials and Butterfly Bush
To get your garden looking best this spring, winter is the time to clean up and the Stihl Combi Power System is a tool that can get the job done.
Promises of the return of spring are popping out all around us now. Daffodils have pushed up like periscopes from the muddy depths signaling the change of the season, and depending on your climate zone, flowering trees may be beginning to break bud. Soon the landscape will transform as deciduous trees and shrubs will leaf out to complete the transformation from winter to spring.
To prepare for this transformation and to have your garden look its best when it does occur, you should be doing some garden cleanup. Ornamental grasses that go dormant in the winter should be cut back to the ground as close as possible. Even the evergreen types benefit from a close cut when they start looking shabby after a few years. Other woody shrubs like the Buddleia (Butterfly Bush) will look best with a severe spring pruning - they should be cut back to 12 to 16 inches above the ground to rejuvenate them.
Perennials like coreopsis, daylilies and the larger agapanthus should be cleaned by grooming the dead floppy foliage away to make room for the new fresh growth. Basically any foliage that looks dead can be cleaned away; with care taken not to pull the root ball out if it was recently planted.
Roses should be cut back if you've not already done so. Old fashioned or hedge roses that get large do benefit from being cut back every other year or so. Check with your local nursery as to proper pruning for specific types - as it varies. However, you can’t really hurt a rose much - and cutting them back is better than no pruning at all. Just be certain not to cut back a budded rose below the graft unions, which are located inches above the ground.
One tip here - buy cutting grown roses, which are grown on their own roots. These are better as root stock shoots are often a problem otherwise, as errant shoots which are unlike the desirable rose will shoot up with different leaves and often bloom revealing a different flower. These shoots should be removed, but again buy roses on their own roots whenever you can.
Also, now is the time to limb up trees to allow for passage or if lower branches are growing into neighboring shrubs. Remember that lower branches on trees are beneficial in that a tree will grow stronger the longer the lower branches remain and that lower limbs shade the ground, which keeps roots cool and moist. So do this maintenance chore only when needed.
My favorite clean up power tool for the large garden is the Stihl Combi power system. Basically you buy the power head and the attachments you desire. Available are a pole pruner, weedeater, hedge trimmer and soil cultivator. The beauty is the interchangeability. You simply loosen a center knob and interchange in seconds.
The unit is really quiet for a gas powered engine; it starts easy and really performs. The pruner attachment works great for tree limbing and is useful for pruning old overgrown shrub roses, as you can stand back out of the thorn zone and prune into interior of the bush without getting punctured. Check this product out on-line - just go to products and click on Multi Task Tools. http://www.stihlusa.com/
