David: Hi I’m David Lupberger with servicemagic.com. I’m here with Kathy Bowen from, Boulder Gardener, a full service landscape company. And we’re going to talk about three very simple tips to get your garden ready for spring. Kathy can you show me what you have in mind?
Kathy: Yes Dave, springtime is a great time to start dividing perennials the reason you do this is because when they get overgrown they don’t bloom as successfully as they should. So here’s the example of the iris and what you simply do is you dig it out and then you divide it, it’s really easy. You can even snap it like this, so therefore you have three brand new plants.
David: And if you do this you’ll see you’ll end up with more blooms once they fill in.
Kathy: That’s right.
David: Okay.
Kathy: And more plants that are free. With the perennials that you’ve just divided you can now make a new planting, you make sure that the dirt is flush with the bottom of the root. And all you do now is look forward to the blooms.
David: All right so the benefit in splitting a perennial is you now have several new plants to work with.
Kathy: Correct.
David: All right now can you tell me about tip two what’s the reason people use mulch and what are the benefits?
Kathy: Well mulch is really important especially in a new planting because by placing it down around the new planting it keeps soil erosions down, it keeps moisture around the new plant. In addition to that it also keeps aggressive weeds away from the new plants so that they can thrive.
David: Okay, now what is this particular mulch?
Kathy: This particular mulch is called gorilla hair, which is the fun name for it or it’s also called red seeder.
David: Red seeder.
Kathy: Yes.
David: Okay.
Kathy: And this is particularly a good mulch because it match to itself so it has a longer life span and it’s also wind resistant.
David: Okay, so let’s talked a little about ornamental grasses. Number one what are they and number two how do you take care of them?
Kathy: Well Dave ornamental grasses typically grow in clumps and the reason people plant them is mostly for fall interest. But for a spring tip to take care of them you really need to cut down the old growth to get them ready for the spring season. This plant in particular, it’s a little too late but I can show an example of one that was done in a timely fashion.
So here’s an example of an ornamental grass that was cut about a month and a half ago by removing the old stalks the new growth is now able to come up through and have this successful growing season.
David: On more thing, spring cleaning means doing it in the spring as you’re doing the general clean up make sure you do it early enough or you're not damaging this new plantings. I’m David Lupberger with servicemagic.com.
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