Completing those extra spring tasks leads to plusher lawns, healthier perennials and delicious strawberries

Earlier in March I gave you nature indicators when to plant what for your vegetable garden.
I was reminded when I saw all the pre-emergent crabgrass preventer in stores that I had not given you that indicator, which is when the lilac buds are ready to open, but not yet open.
Crabgrass is an annual weed, and the seed will not germinate until the ground is warm. These preventers are pre-emergent, meaning that you have to have it applied prior to the seeds germinating … too late and it isn’t effective, too early and rain could potentially move it down into the soil too deep to be preventative. If you’re on schedule, the lilacs don’t and won’t lie!
If you have summer- to fall-blooming perennials that need to be thinned or moved, ie: asters, daylilies, phlox, ornamental grass, hosta, sedum, mums, etc., get that job done in the next week, or wait until late summer. For spring-blooming perennials like peonies and bearded iris, wait to transplant or thin until mid-August.
     While cleaning up your flower garden, if you have had a problem with iris borers in your German bearded iris, now is when you want to do a thorough cleanup of ALL of last year’s stems and leaves.  The borers lay their eggs in the leaves, and that carries them into the next season.  Getting rid of all of those leaves now will likely eliminate most reinfections by the pest.
If you have a strawberry patch that is getting too thick, you can thin it now.
My experience is that after the plants have been producing for four years, they tend to become too thick, resulting in a decline in production and quality of the berries. I plan for this by rooting runners in 1-quart pots of soil in August. After about four to six weeks, those new plants will have become established and those babies can be planted in a new area.
It is best when renewing strawberries to move the patch to a new area to eliminate root and leaf diseases that can and will plague older plants. Thus, my thinning is actually a total renewal.
Yes, it is work but if I’m after quality berries, it is so worth the effort.
I grow a variety called Seascape, which is an everbearer, meaning that the plants bloom and produce a crop in June and then come back into production in August and continue until cold weather prevents their ripening.