Stacked LogoLawns have gone from brown to green and growing already. It’s rare to have grass out of dormancy so soon, but the warm temps have made it active much earlier this year. Rake your lawn to remove leaves and debris, and to remove thick and thatchy areas, or areas of snow mold that was killed off. The first or second mowing should be a bit shorter to eliminate all of the brown dead grass blades from last season and remove some of the thatch, but then set your mower height to 2″ or a bit higher for the rest of the summer. New lawns love to have a shot in the arm with a starter fertilizer. Older established lawns can be fertilized this month too unless you did a late fall application. If you did a late fall application you may want to wait until Memorial Day. If you have broadleaved weeds, use a weed and feed product NOW as the weeds are up and growing. If you had crabgrass last summer, you will need to put down a pre-emergent herbicide (about the time the Lilacs bloom; late April or early May in our area – earlier this year). Don’t put it down too early or it may not work when the seeds begin to sprout. Just before the common lilacs bloom is an excellent timing note to remember when you want to prevent crabgrass. We have been hearing radio ads from the big box stores always suggesting to put it down first thing, but wait until just before those seeds will sprout for great results.

Urban Ediscapes          $114.00                                  

Great edibles for a small backyard!!  No need for an additional garden space.  Mix the plants into your new or existing landscape beds.  Need help with a design or installation call 800.236.4242 or contact your local Design Pro Today.

Includes:

•  “Multi-stemmed” Apple (Liberty & Freedom)- 4′ Bare Root
• 10- Mary Washington Asparagus
• 10- Tribute Strawberry
• 3- Crimson Cherry Rhubarb
• 1- Grape  vine of your choice
• Check out our catalog pages for plant information

Shipping & Tax are additional.  Pick-up is available.

Wisconsin Savannah         $150.00                                 

Create a native habitat for all to enjoy.  Great choice native perennials and ornamental grasses.  Provides well established plants for your landscape beds or restoration projects.   Add a #10 Swamp White or Bur Oak to the package for only $119!!  Need help with a design or installation call 800.236.4242 or contact your local Design Pro Today.

Includes:

• 3- Purple Coneflower (1 gal.)
• 3- Liatris (1 gal.)
• 3- Deamii Black-Eyed Susan (1 gal.)
• 5- Little Bluestem (1 gal.)
• Bur/ Swamp White Oak is available- add $119 (#10 container)

Shipping & Tax are additional.  Pick-up is available.

F. x intermedia ‘Courtasol’

Masses of yellow flowers appear well before any leaves in the landscape

One of the first signs of spring is the bright yellow blossoms covering this plant in early April.  What makes this Forsythia even more special in the landscape is its small size and compact shape. Unlike other varieties of Forsythia this one grows only 3’ to 4’ high and wide, making it a perfect choice for that foundation plant or a low informal hedge. Trimmed, it can be a great formal hedge as well.

It is hearty to Zone 4 and blooms well in full sun as well as partial shade. Its glossy light green slender foliage brightens any landscape.  Fall color is a mixed purple, maroon with often shades of red orange to yellow in the interior of the plant.

The First of April Plants to Bloom are the Forsythias

It is a perfect choice for the slope or hillside in that it covers the area and creates a wonderful texture and contrast with other plantings while requiring little care.  For a great head start to spring the stems can even be cut in March, a month before it blooms, and forced indoors to blossom!

 This plant is a must in any landscape!

By Keith Rudolph krudolph@mckaynursery.com

This is a good time of the year to remember where the piles of snow were this last winter. Why? To choose the right plants for that area this spring that would not have been affected by that snow pile. Heavy snow and/ or piles of salt will demolish the wrong plant. Consider hardy shrubs and perennials that die back to the ground or can be pruned low to the ground. Make sure your plant choices are tolerant to salt and heavy urban conditions. 

Good perennial choices include Hosta, Daylily, Sedum and other perennials.  When it comes to shrubs, Annabelle Hydrangea and smaller growing varieties of Spirea are great shrub choices, as they can be pruned down to 6” above the ground if damaged.  Save yourself some headaches and think ahead. You will be glad you did.  Need additional ideas? Take a look at our plant catalog pages or contact you Local Design Pro today!

Perennials & Ornamental Grasses are great choices for landscape beds that experience large piles of snow & salt in the winter.

We Welcome April with open arms this year….

It has been a long cold winter with plenty of snow.   Spring is taking its time coming on, but the spring bulbs and birds let us know it is here.  Are you doing any planting this spring?  Let us help with your design and installation.

Now is the time to get started on the spring yard clean up, if you are so inclined. If not let us take care of it.  Call your McKay Design Pro today for a price quote on Spring Clean Up or Landscape Maintenance package today.   For you do-it yourselfers….Our pruning DVD outlines exactly how to approach pruning, an excellent resource.

We Design for Your Enjoyment.

How do we create award winning outdoor living spaces without you having to invest all of your time in maintenance and upkeep when you should be enjoying your investment?  Outdoor rooms, outdoor kitchens and eating areas, water features (whether it is a simple birdbath, small fountain, or large flowing stream and pond), and lighting, are all hot right now.  The key?  Good design.  A plan with a great design by your favorite McKay Professional is where you start…the best first step you can make!  The right plants in the right spot, a space designed to meet your needs, that it the key.

Proper planning is the main ingredient for any great landscape.  Anyone can pick up a few plants and stick them in around the foundation, but creating an incredible design with hardy plants, sited properly, to perform for years to come – you really need to call your local McKay design professional.  Are you ready to update your home?  We are ready to help.  Whether it is just an addition of a perennial color border, an ediscape planting, a few fruit trees, or perhaps a new outdoor kitchen — or maybe a complete renovation by removing old plants arranged in an old fashioned design.  Lets us create for you a new complete updated design that you can enjoy for years to come.  We come right to your home, meet with you to find our your needs and likes, have the plants delivered for you to install — or let us come and do the work for you — whatever your budget allows.  We have local design professionals throughout the Midwest to help you.

Perennials & Grasses

Early April is a great time to divide established fall blooming perennials (spring bloomers best left until later in summer).  The more aggressive perennial plants need to have the clump size reduced to maintain good healthy plants.  Now is a great time to dig a portion to share with a friend or neighbor.  Prune back any brown dead top growth on all perennials, and then divide if necessary, blow or rake out any of last year’s foliage from those plants in case there is diseased foliage.  They grow fast as the sun warms the soil so the sooner the better.

Prune back all ornamental grasses now.  The grasses have performed their winter duty, so cut last year’s foliage down to just several inches without cutting deep into the crowns.  Cool season grasses will begin growing now in warmer sunnier microclimates.  The Warm season grasses also need to have last years foliage removed too, but they will not start to grow until the soil temperatures have warmed up considerably – sometimes not until early June in some areas.

Your Landscape Beds

Freshen up mulch beds by lightly raking or scratching up the mulch and spread out evenly around your plants.  Where necessary, add additional mulch to help preserve soil moisture and reduce weed growth.  Some like to use pre-emergent herbicides in the beds, and others will prefer not to.  Pre-emergent will prevent weeds from growing up through the mulch.  Be careful not to use around plants it is not labeled for use on.

Roses

We get so many calls each spring that go something like this: “My roses are all dead!”  I just want you all to know that most all roses will die back to the mulch line in many cases.  Rose canes that are exposed to winter will die back, but remember that our own root roses will re-grow from the base.  Prune back roses that will bloom on new wood down to 6” or so, and pull back the mulch away from the plants if you had prepared them properly last fall.  For climbing roses and for roses that bloom on last year’s canes, you can shorten up or remove any broken branches now before they start to leaf out.

Vines

Prune back Clematis vines down to 12-18” or so.  Clematis wood is very brittle and splinters easily so wear heavy gloves to prevent getting splinters in your hands.

Shrubs

Finish up renewal pruning any older Aronia, Dogwoods, Honeysuckles, Privets, or Viburnums by removing the thickest and oldest stems down to the ground and allow the nice young stems to remain.  The young stems you leave can be shortened up as well.

Prune repeat blooming Spiraea varieties can be cut back to a nice tight mound of stems as they respond with much vigor and violent amounts of bloom.  (Deadhead the first set of blooms to give way to another later in summer and sometimes again in fall.)

Prune Hydrangea Annabelle and arborescens types down to just a few inches and then don’t touch with the shears for the rest of the year.  Prune back All summer Beauty and Endless Summer (and all other Hydrangea macrophylla types) just enough to remove the dead portions of the stems, but allowing the green parts to remain and then don’t touch after that.  Prune back all Hydrangea paniculata types (like PeeGee -both tree and shrub form, Limelight, Pink Diamond, Tardiva -both shrub and tree form, and Unique).  All of these woodier types can be pruned back to any size, but the once they start to leaf out do not touch them anymore as the blooms come from the new growth.

Trees

Oak trees should no longer be pruned anymore this year until they go dormant again.

Evergreens

Prune evergreen shrubs like Japanese Yews and Junipers if necessary, but not any Pine trees (Pines will be trimmed by candle pruning in May).  You may have noticed some winter burn on some of these items.  The foliage on these stems that has turned brown may not remain on the plant, but the stem that holds those brown needles may produce new buds which will make new growth so just wait a bit to see what is actually dead and which stems are still alive.  Boxwood is showing some winter burn where the more exposed plants were sited.  Boxwood prefer winter wind protection.  Sometimes branches that the snow melted off and the rest of the plant remained covered, those exposed parts were damaged.  Just wait a bit and see which branches start showing signs of new bud development before cutting it all off.

Lawn

Rake your lawn if you already haven’t, and do a first short mowing to eliminate all of the brown dead grass blades from last season, but then set your mower height to 2” or a bit higher for the rest of the summer.  Some snow mold and perhaps vole damage is evident.  Raking and the initial short mowing will help those areas fill in.  You may want to wait to re-seed when the soil warms up if necessary.  New lawns love to have a shot in the arm with a starter fertilizer.  Older established lawns can be fertilized this month too, but not usually until they have started to grow.  If you did a late fall application you may want to wait until Memorial Day.  If you have broadleaved weeds, use a weed and feed product about mid-April, or when the dandelions become active.  If you had crabgrass last summer, you will need to put down a pre-emergent herbicide product just before the Lilacs bloom (late April or early May in our area).  Don’t put it down too early or it may not work when the seeds begin to sprout.  Just before the common lilacs bloom is an excellent timing note to remember when you want to prevent crabgrass.  We have been hearing radio ads from the big box stores to put it down now, but it is too early.

Ediscapes

Newspapers and magazine articles are promoting green and sustainable and many are “returning to the garden”.  This trend will continue, and not just during a slower economy.  Have your local McKay Design Pro help turn your yard into an “Ediscape” by incorporating small fruits and veggies in your shrub and perennial borders.  An easily accessible kitchen garden close to the patio is a great place to plug in a few easy to grow herbs and a tomato plant or three.  Maybe you want a much larger garden.  You can start to plant cool season crops as soon as the soil can be worked.  Tomato seeds can be started indoors in another week or so if you are so inclined.

Small Fruits and fruit trees are still selling wildly.  Be sure to design in an area that will best site these plants for the best fruit production.  This year we have container grown Blueberries for the first time.  We are also offering bare root strawberries 25 per bundle only $1 per plant.  Strawberries make great groundcovers in your landscape too.

Do you have an existing asparagus bed?  So many times, quack grass and other perennial weeds creep into this bed robbing you of production from your bed.  A simple solution?  As soon as the weeds in the areas green up, and prior to the asparagus sprouts begin to emerge, spray the area withHi Yield Killzall.  Killzall will kill anything that is green, spray when it is dry and it won’t rain after application (can be sent along with your plant order, or we can send it ups to you home).  It will selectively eliminate anything green in the bed, and allow the asparagus to grow without competition.  Planting new asparagus?  Get them while we have them, as they are selling fast.  Nice #1 grade bare root plants are productive in a short period of time.  Early planting is best.  Three varieties remain; ‘Viking’, ‘Mary Washington’ (many) and ‘Purple Passion’ (few).  Get them while they last.

McKay Nursery would like to hear how you are celebrating Earth Day this year!!
McKay Nursery Company is celebrating Earth Week from April 22-29.  During that time, friend us on facebook and tell us how you and/ or your organization is pitching in to save the planet.  At the end of the week we will choose our favorite entry.  The winning entry will win a free tree!!  In addition, we will donate 1 of 3 plant packages to your community organization.  Plant packages will be a choice of Native Plantings, Eco-Explorers or Ediscapes.  For more information, follow our blog at www.mckaynursery.com under “Green Tips,” and follow us on facebook.

Hot new plants are always fun to try.  We have new plants to offer every year. Check out our new website, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter!