Mow your ground covers to remove any winter damage. Fertilize and water the ground covers to encourage growth.
Gardening "To Do" Tips by Month for El Jebel, CO
Cut back flower stalks on your spring-flowering bulbs as the flowers begin to fade.
Apply organic matter, compost, and manure to soil.
Finish pruning fruit trees, roses, raspberries, grapevines.
Seed cool-season vegetables outside, such as beets, peas, lettuce, collards, turnips, carrots, broccoli, Brussels sprout, Swiss chard, kale, kohlrabi, onions, parsley, parsnips, radishes, and spinach. (See our Best Dates to Plant chart on Almanac.com/Gardening.)
Start looking for tent caterpillar nests in fruit trees and remove.
Cover tender plants if late frost is in the forecast.
Plant new trees for Earth Day.
Start tomato seeds indoors.
Apply horticultural oil to trees and shrubs that had insect issues last year.
Plant broccoli plants and early cabbage outdoors.
Prune spring-blooming shrubs, such as forsythia, after they have finished flowering.
Sow your cool-season vegetables in succession so you can have a steady harvest throughout the growing season.
Divide perennials that are overcrowded.
Plants started indoors should be hardened off outdoors in cold frames.
Thin out crowded seedlings of cool-season vegetables, such as beets, carrots, and lettuce.
Sow seeds of hardy annual flowers (larkspur, California poppy, sweet pea).
Begin setting out transplants of tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants.
Plant pansies.
Begin fertilizing houseplants again.
Clean up your garden. Rake up any leaves, remove winter mulch, remove any dead plants, and mix in compost in your garden soil.
Fertilize the lawn.
Fertilize roses, raspberries, and woody plants.
Plant potatoes.
