Expert offers spring lawn and garden tips

Now that spring has sprung, Regina residents with green thumbs are itching to get into their yards.

“When you get to this time of the year, you can see the snow disappearing and the grass showing and everybody’s just excited,” Rick Van Duyvendyk of Dutch Growers said earlier this week on The Greg Morgan Morning Show. “When the home shows come on, everything wants to kick-start.”

Regina’s Spring Home Show runs until Sunday and may be giving enthusiastic gardeners some ideas about their lawns, trees and landscaping.

According to Van Duyvendyk, it’s a little bit too early for people to start getting aggressive with their lawns. The moisture in the ground and the melting snow are the problem.

“You obviously don’t want to be mowing it when it’s really wet or even thatching it,” he said. “A lot of people want to get out there and rake it really hard. You can do that once the lawn dries — you can rake the thatch out – but if you do it too early, you’ll actually rip some of the roots out.”

That said, it’s not too early to do some light raking – especially since it can help get rid of snow mould.

Van Duyvendyk noted that his company has received numerous calls from people about the white stuff that is left over when snow melts. The cure, he said, is simple.

“It’s easy to do because there’s no chemical you need to do or anything else,” Van Duyvendyk said. “Just take a leaf rake out there and just basically fluff up the grass. In a day or so, it’ll all disappear. It just gets some air into the grass.”

When it comes to foliage, the key at this point is to prune trees and shrubs. Van Duyvendyk noted they’re still dormant, so spring is the best time to prune them.

Elm trees can only be pruned until Sunday – it’s illegal to do so in Saskatchewan after that date – while birch and maple trees shouldn’t be pruned until July at the earliest.