Shelby Landscaping and Garden Center

Shelby county Ohio has seen another one of those early spring warm ups. Not only are the forsythia blooming, but ornamental pears, cherries, and some of the early crabapples.

Alas Wednesday night it will drop to freezing temperatures. We will have 4 or 5 nights in a row with bitter cold. This will burn a lot of the tender foliage on plants like lilacs and it will shorten the blooms on weeping cherries.

There is however one good thing about freeze and thaw. This may provide another last chance for easy over seeding of the lawn. If you have thinning areas, go out and spread some grass seed. do what you can to get the seed in contact with the soil, raking out dead areas etc. The freeze and thaw of the soil will cause the soil to crack apart and heave around, working some of the seed into the surface. Hard to believe huh? This method has pretty good results when done in late winter, and with the freeze and thaw over the next few days I'd say there's a pretty good chance of success now. (Remember we are in west central Ohio)

A couple things to remember. If you or your lawn service applies a product for crabgrass prevention this will prevent your "good seed" from germinating as well. Also don't expect the seed to germinate until the soil temp has warmed up again...possibly June.