GARDENING

success for all of March like beets, broccoli and radishes. We are in the final days to plant bareroot food crops like asparagus, rhubarb, horseradish, grapes, blackberries, blueberries and raspberries for best results.

This is a good time to plant container-grown or balled and burlapped trees and shrubs. This is the season to get the best selection of fruit trees at your local nursery or garden centers. It is a good time to plant flowering trees and shrubs, as well as ornamental or shade trees.

Over the next few weeks, we will be enjoying the spring parade of color from the yellow forsythia to the red quince on our flowering shrubs. We will enjoy the symphony of bright colors on flower trees like the redbud, crabapples, ornamental pears and magnolias.

This is a great time to observe the flowering shrubs and trees in your neighborhoods or at local parks. Decide what you like and visit your local nursery and garden center to buy one or more of these beautiful flowering shrubs or trees to add to your yard to produce a spring flower show at your home in future years.

One of the things people often like the least about gardening or lawn work is battling weeds or those plants that seem to grow so well and they compete with your desired plantings. We can’t stop all weeds, but we can sure reduce weed pressure by applying pre-emergent weed killers or herbicides now to kill the weeds as they try to germinate.

Some herbicides work on broadleaf weeds and others on grassy weeds. Most preemergents do not work after the seeds have sprouted so there is a calendar window to apply these products before the weeds or grasses germinate or sprout.

Do not use a pre-emergent herbicide where you plan to sow desirable grass seed, vegetable or flower seed in the next three or four months because it also can kill these good seeds as they start to sprout.

Some folks say to apply the pre-emergent herbicides by the calendar between mid February and the end of March, but our weather can vary quite a lot from year to year so an old Extension Service friend recommended that we apply pre-emergents between the time the yellow forsythia start blooming and the redbud trees quit blooming.

Most herbicides will be active to kill germinating weeds for six to 12 weeks after they are applied, then watered to activate the herbicide. There are many choices in pre-emergent herbicides, some that are sprayed on your lawns or flowerbeds as liquids and others that are applied as granules with a broadcast lawn spreader.

The granular herbicides are available as an herbicide or weed killer only or blended with fertilizer and marketed as “weed and feed” products that will act like birth control for your weeds while fertilizing the lawn. There are more choices for the lawn based on the type of grass you have and the weed problems you are battling. There are more limited choices of pre-emergent weed killers you can safely use in your flowerbeds to reduce how much physical weed pulling you will need to do.

Take advantage of the nice days and start enjoying some time in your yard and garden. It feels so good to get back outside in the yard and to know that we have even more better days coming as spring arrives.

Rodd Moesel serves as president of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau and was inducted into the Oklahoma Agriculture Hall of Fame. Email garden and landscape questions to rmoesel@americanplant.com.