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Timing Is Everything!

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Citrus Trees

Fertilize your citrus NOW for more blooms, May/June for better fruit set, September/October for nutrients. 

For citrus trees, we recommend fertilizing with Espoma Citrus-Tone – all organic

Meyer lemons on left with fertilizer, Meyer lemons on the right without!
Organic Citrus Tone Fertilizer
Knock-out Roses

We like to cut knock-out roses by the end of January or first week of February, even if they’re covered in blooms. We prefer to cut before roses have made their first big flush of Spring growth. Just like the hybrid tea roses, knock-out roses benefit from a hard trimming, usually down to 24”. Begin fertilizing mid-February. 

We recommend fertilizing roses with all organic Rose-Glo. Works great for lots of other blooming plants.

Ornamental Grasses

Trim your ornamental grasses straight across (no “cupcakes”) to 3”-4” from the ground  sometime in January. Follow up with a small amount of fertilizer late February or early March. Be stingy – too much fertilizer speeds up the growth, making the foliage flop over instead of stand up. 

Next week, my grasses will be cut back and ready for a new growing season. 

For ornamental grasses, Plant ToneMedina Growin’ Green, or HastaGro are all great organic fertilizers. Just remember – not too much!

-Sally Gill

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Richard Haas says

    My lemon tree has been blooming for over a month and there are small lemons when the blooms drop off. Should that be happening now?

    • James Gill says

      That is early, but I have observed other plants that are a little out of synch this year. Its not an unfortunate occurrence though, unless we get a late freeze, which is unlikely. Do your citrus fertilizer now, as soon to warm weather will produce lots of new leaves to catch sunlight to make carbohydrates to build nice plump lemons!

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