May 16, 2000
Recharging Your Spring Bulbs and Battling Moss   

  As I write (Thursday of last week to you), we’re just drying out from the storms of 5/10 that broke the heat wave of 5/6 – 5/9.  I must say that I’m enjoying the cool down.  It was pretty wild to watch the plants in action after dawdling through most of spring.  I’m not sure that I’ve seen leaves grow that fast.  I’ve got a couple of weeping purple beeches that seemed to go from buds to leaves in 2 days!  What a show!  I was just outside enjoying one of the subtler pleasures of spring; the sound of a breeze rustling through the leaves of a large maple tree.  It’s one of those things that you didn’t even realize that you missed until you hear it again after so many months.  Another thrill was the arrival of our resident hummingbirds who’ve finally returned from their southern home down Mexico way.  I feel privileged that they’ve chosen my area to nest and mate.  My hummingbird feeders are filled and ready.  Ah, the little pleasures of spring.

                One thing that wasn’t so pleasurable was watching my fifteen varieties of daffodils flower and go by in a week or less.  The heat wave was responsible of course and there wasn’t anything to be done.  They sat out there in strong bud for the three weeks prior to the heat wave just waiting for enough sun and heat to let them flower.  Well, they got more heat and sun than was necessary and the show was brief.  This reminds me that a lot of folks will forget to “recharge’ their spring flower bulbs at this time of year and will be disappointed next year when they get fewer or no flowers on their daffodils, tulips and other hardy bulbs.  This is the time to take action. Let me briefly give you the lowdown.

                Think of your spring flowering bulbs as rechargeable batteries.  In spring, after their flowering cycle is finished, the bulb/batteries are discharged.  To get the best show possible next spring you need to recharge them.  How?  The first step is to snip off the flower stem.  Cut the flower stem off down low; as near the base as possible.  The reason we do this is to prevent the plant from putting any energy into producing seeds.  For the plant, this is their most important goal so they’ll use up a lot of energy to produce seeds.  We have no need for the seeds and so, by removing the flower stem where the seeds are forming, we’ll cause the plant to send all that energy back down to the bulb/battery where it’s stored for future use. 

                Make sure that you don’t remove any of the leaves when you’re snipping off the flower stems.  Think of the leaves as solar collectors that gather energy from the sun and send it down to the bulb/battery where it’s stored for future use. 

                The final step is to feed your bulbs/batteries.  Get your hands on some gentle, high phosphorus, granular plant food.  I like the Espoma brand’s Flower-tone.  It’s gentle and I’ll use it not only for the bulbs but all my flowering perennials as well.  Poke some holes in the soil with a pipe about as deep as you planted the bulbs, then fill the holes 2/3 up with the Flower-tone.  This is where the roots are that will be able to absorb the nutrients.  You could scatter the food on the surface and some of it will eventually make it down to the roots but I like to poke the holes so I can get the food where the bulbs/batteries can make the best use of it.  Don’t get too close to the stems but insert your food  3” or 4” away.  High phosphorus foods will also provide extra energy that your bulbs/batteries will store for future use. 

                That’s it; just three easy steps to insure that your bulbs/batteries have stored plenty of energy so you’ll have more flowers next year instead of less. 1.  Snip off the flower stems.  2. Leave the leaves.  3. Feed them with a gentle, high phosphorus, granular food.  After the leaves have turned all yellow it means that they’ve stored as much energy as the bulbs/batteries can hold and it’s O.K. to trim them off as well.  If you find the gradually yellowing leaves unattractive, try masking them by planting them among other plants that fill in later.  I like to plant daffodils among daylilies (or vice versa).  The leaves are a similar shape and, as the daffodils are finishing, the daylilies are just coming into their own. 

                Another topic I want to touch on this week is moss in the lawn.  If this bothers you, you should be aware that the reason the moss took hold in the lawn is because the soil has gradually become acidic.  There is a tendency for most soils to become acidic.  Grass clippings, leaves and twigs decaying in the soil help make it more acidic.  Lawn food applications and acidic rain also contribute.  As the soil becomes acidic, it is harder for the grass to survive.  As the grass (which prefers neutral soil) thins, the moss (which loves acidic soil) starts to take over.  So how do we stop this vicious cycle?

                The answer is testing the soil’s pH and applying the amount of lime required to bring the pH of the soil back to neutral.  Keeping the pH of the soil of your lawn at neutral (7.0) is, perhaps, the most important aspect of lawn care and, undoubtedly, the most overlooked.  Besides discouraging moss, lime provides calcium and allows your lawn to make maximum use of any nutrients available. 

If you want to think of your lawn as a gasoline engine then lawn food would be the gasoline that makes the engine run.  Lime would be the engine oil that makes sure all goes smoothly.  Without oil, no amount of gasoline can make an engine run for too long.  Without lime, eventually the lawn won’t grow as well as it used to.  Think of your soil pH test as the dipstick you need to determine you’re how low your lawn’s pH is.  These pH test kits are cheap and easy to use and, believe me, can save you a lot of time and money that you’ll spend on grass seed and fertilizer trying to repair a situation that could have been avoided.  Lime won’t kill moss but it will prevent it.  Once it’s there you’ll have to rake it all out, apply lime, grass seed and a starter fertilizer and spend your time watering the grass seed constantly until it is established.  Rest assured, if you care about your lawn, a pH tester is a bargain, and lime is cheap compared to lawn food and grass seed.  Thanks for the read.