Ah, spring.
The season when homeowners’ fancies turn to thoughts of pruning. And weeding. And mulching. And cutting
grass.
People around the area are beginning to think about preparing the outside of their homes for the coming
warmer months, and an important part of that is considering their landscaping and yards.
Stores stocking lawn care items are starting to see a blooming interest.
Carly Schulze, manager of the Sears Hometown and Outlet Store located in the Woodland Mall in Bowling
Green, noted that while the new 2017 models of items from leaf blowers to chainsaws to weedwackers are
already out, “people are mostly asking about lawnmowers. … We’ve had quite a bit of people coming just
to check out what’s new.”
Popular right now, she said, have been larger riding lawnmowers, including those that feature
“hydrostatic transmission, where you can drive your lawnmower like a car … in a lot of cases there’s
even mowing in reverse.”
A representative of the Tractor Supply Company, located on Ohio 25 just north of Bowling Green, said
customers there are going over seeds and getting started with fertilizer in an effort to get yards green
again, as well as potting mix soil, to jump start flower beds.
Making sure the outside of a home is ready for the new growing season also includes checking out existing
trees and shrubs to make sure they’re in tip-top shape.
Grant Jones, arborist for the city of Bowling Green, noted that homeowners with trees and shrubs should
take the first step of inspecting the plantings.
“It’s a good time of year right now,” he said, because leaves haven’t yet come out, letting people get a
good look at their plantings to check for problems, like broken or dead branches, or missing or cracked
bark. Items like that, he said, can thus be easily pruned away.
He also said that, with shrubs, if it’s become too large or over-mature, this early part of the spring
can be a good way to go in and “renew” the plant by cutting some of the branches or stems from the plant
to reduce its size.
“The only word of caution with that is you’ll want to make sure (what is being cut is) not something
that’s going to flower in the spring.”
Jones also said this is a good time to put down mulch, because other plants haven’t yet started to come
up.
Mulch should be at a depth of no more than 2 to 4 inches, which should be maintained.
He said that probably the biggest issue with mulch is to ensure that it’s not piled up against the trunks
of trees, called “volcano mulching.” Because of mulch-related moisture, doing so can promote disease and
decay problems if the tree stays permanently wet.
Owners of thin-barked trees should also watch out for “sunscale,” which can occur during the winter
months. This means that such trees can get wounds on their southwest sides.
“It’s caused by the trunk thawing during the day as it gets sunlight, and freezing at night,” Jones said,
and the repeated pattern causes injuries to the tree. “Sometimes people will wrap the trunk or put
protection on during the winter months. This is a good time of year to take off some of that
protection.”
While springtime is a prime opportunity to plant a new tree or shrub, potential planters should be
thinking about how much room they have for the prospective flora, and if it has the kind of growth
characteristics they’re looking for.
“You want to select the tree or shrub you want to plant,” and speak with a landscaper at the nursery
they’ve gone to for advice.
Jones said a good resource is a kiosk located at the Bowling Green arboretum at Pearl Street and South
Wintergarden Road. The kiosk offers a list of plants and trees that tend to do well in the area.
Jones said two common mistakes people make with their plantings is cutting off too much, or planting too
deep.
“Probably one of the biggest mistakes goes back to flowers,” he said. As an example, he noted that
someone may have a lilac shrub in their yard that they enjoy because of its blossoms. At this time of
year they might go outside and prune it back “substantially, and they’re taking off a lot of those
flower buds and they get a plant that never flowers” because they keep following that pattern each
spring.
Additionally, “when they plant trees, sometimes they’ll unknowingly plant the trees too deep.”
He said that it’s best to pull back the soil of a tree that is set for planting and find the trunk
“flare,” where the trunk starts to become wider and the roots flare out. Jones said that is best to
plant trees so that the flare is slightly above the soil surface.