Thaws, Pruning And Pests: A February Ramble

We’re so very tantalizingly close to spring — and while climate change tends to bring the season a bit earlier every year, this may not be one of them.

Looking at the long-range forecasts, we see that even during the first week of April, nighttime temperatures will still dip below freezing. These weather predictions aren’t great for painting a picture of what’s really going to be happening outside in the coming weeks and months, but they are good gauges of future trends — which, as of late February, is a cold and wet spring once we have some warm spurts.

So, restraint and patience should be the rule of the landscape for the next month or so, because getting things going too early will result in even more frustration when we finally get outside and dirty. Keep in mind that while the air may feel warm for a few days, young plants hate nothing more than cold, wet soil.

Yes, you’ll see landscapers busily blowing leaves that don’t need to be blown and clearing mulches from gardens that should probably remain mulched. Remember, they make money when they’re working and, at times, their enthusiasm is not driven by nature and nurture, but rather by dollars and cents.

For those who choose to be more mindful of what the landscape really needs from late February into early April, there are a few concerns to consider. As the ground, garden and lawn thaw on bright, sunny, late-winter days, it may be just the top few inches that actually soften. Yes, it’s the best time for pruning fruit trees, but if there’s ice under that top bit of soil, your ladder will be prone to slip and you to fall. Sure footing and stable ladders are critical if you don’t want to get hurt.

And while you’re trimming those fruit trees, it’s very important to keep your pruner clean and disinfected so you don’t spread diseases from one branch, or tree, to another. Special disinfectant solutions including bleach and alcohol used to be popular, but lots of evidence shows that dipping these tools in non-fat milk — that’s right, milk — does just as good a job, or even better.

Walking on your lawn during these days can also be harmful. Foot traffic on dormant, frozen grass can leave lasting depressions, or impressions, that show up in the spring as burn spots and places where mowers can drop into a rut and scalp the lawn. Try your best to keep off the lawn areas until the threat of freezing has passed, and that includes your landscaper or gardener.

Be proactive if you feel they are being pushed by the need to earn, as opposed to your need to have a great outdoor space. Short-term visual impacts like removing every last leaf from the lawn, or getting mulches off the gardens, may suit their needs, but these are not the garden’s needs — and hopefully not yours.

Winter mulches should stay in place until any threat of freezing ground is gone. Yes, the mulches can be thinned and this will allow for the soil to dry a bit, but enough mulch should be left in place so that frozen ground stays frozen — preventing the sun from baking the soil during the day, only to have it freeze again at night. This freeze/thaw regime is also a good way to bring unwanted weed seeds from the soil back to the surface where they can germinate.

As the snow melted my own garden, anxiety rose to palpable levels. When there’s only a trace of covering of snow, it’s time to search for vole trails, which look like little half tunnels running back and forth from the garden to the lawn or woods. They can give you a great heads up on where to set your vole traps.

I can usually rely on finding these trails all over my property — but not this year, though. It’s unclear whether I’ve got a collapse in the vole population, similar to the collapse in the chipmunk population last year, but so far, I’ve only found one trail instead of the dozen or more I’d expect. It’s possible that my obsessive trapping last year has worked, or that nature has struck a balance with a predator I haven’t seen yet. Stay tuned.

Along the lines of pests, if Japanese stiltgrass has become a problem in your lawn, you may be able to get control using a pre-emergent herbicide, like those used for crabgrass control. You can also do some spot treatment during the growing season, but if you really want to manage this annual weed, I think the whole lawn approach is necessary. Speak with your local garden center or landscaper about this, which brings up another timely topic.

If your landscaper or gardener is applying any pesticide, especially restricted-use pesticides, to your property, he or she must be licensed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Some may scoff at this regulation, but the intent is to protect you and me and our environment from people who aren’t trained in the proper use and liabilities of pesticides. This includes weed control, disease control and insect control. If they do it for hire, they must be licensed.

Be tactful when asking if they are, and don’t be shy about requesting to see the certification. They should have a card from the DEC, and make sure it’s current. There are various levels of certification and not everyone applying the material may need to be licensed. However, at the very least, whoever is applying the pesticide must be under the supervision of a licensed applicator. Ask to see the card and get more information at https://bit.ly/3sVjp8T.

There is a point where nature and gardening merge. While we’re not always aware and conscious of this link, it’s an important one — and one that every gardener should consider. Our gardening work can be helpful to nature and, at the same time, it can be harmful. I’m reminded of the wood frogs that showed up last summer at my new bog garden, wood turtles that I’ve noticed while mowing, snakes seeking shelter in my dry laid stone wall and the toads that I encourage, since they dine on slugs and garden bugs.

Cornell Cooperative Extension has two programs that can help you and others learn about these interactions. For those who tend only toward the gardening side, there is the Master Gardener Program, which you can learn more about at https://bit.ly/3JDAVFh. The other offering is the Master Naturalist Program, which is statewide and not run on the local level, like the other program. However, it is an opportunity to learn about our local natural world and then participate in East End projects, help environmental organizations here and give back to the community.

I became a master naturalist over a decade ago and I’m so impressed with the program, as well as the monthly Zoom presentations where other master naturalists share their areas of expertise and the projects they’re working on. You can get more information and links to the monthly talks at https://bit.ly/33DJ4dG.

Lastly, it’s about that time to get those tick repellents on, as the ticks are certainly out there and active. Some interesting research from the USDA shows that some formulations of cedar oils can be an effective repellent, but the effects are short lived, don’t work as well on all tick species, and seem to only last for a half hour. Nice to know and maybe this will be useful in the future as the research continues — but for now, I’ll be sticking with DEET and permethrin.

Next week, it’s time for oil. Keep growing.