Adair County
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VEGETABLES:
- Start cucumber, cantaloupe, summer squash, and watermelon seeds indoors in peat pots.
- Finish sowing seeds of all cool-season vegetables not yet planted outdoors.
- Flower stalks should be removed from rhubarb plants if they develop.
ORNAMENTALS:
Weeks 1-3
- Winter mulches should be removed from roses.
- Shrubs and trees best planted or transplanted in the spring include butterfly bush, dogwood, Rose-of-Sharon, Black Gum, redbud, grapes, magnolia, tulip poplar, birch, gingko, hawthorn, and most oaks.
- Fertilize established roses once new growth is 2 inches long. Begin spraying for black spot disease.
Week 4
- Easter lilies past blooming can be planted outdoors. Set the bulbs 2-3 inches deeper than they grew in the pot.
- Apply controls for holly leaf minor when the new leaves are just beginning to grow.
- Evergreen and deciduous hedges may be sheared. Prune the top narrower than the base so sunlight will reach the lower limbs.
- Prune spring flowering ornamentals after they finish blooming.
FRUIT-ALL MONTH:
- Blemish-free fruits that are unmarred by insect or disease injury can rarely be produced without relying on regular applications of insecticides and fungicides. For specific information, see MU guidesheet G6010, Home Fruit Spray Schedule.
- Plant bare-root or potted fruit trees as soon as the soil can be worked.
- Remove tree wraps from trees now.
- Prune peaches and nectarines now.
- Leaf rollers are active on apple trees. Control as needed.
- Stink bugs and tarnished plant bugs become active on peaches.
- Destroy and prune off webs of eastern tent caterpillar.
- Protect bees and other pollinating insects. Do not spray insecticides on fruit trees that are blooming.
- Begin sprays for fireblight susceptible apples and pears using an agricultural streptomycin.
- Spider mites and codling moths become active on apples.
LAWN & TURF
- Start mowing cool season grasses at recommended heights.
- Aerate turf if thatch is heavy or if soil is compacted.
- Topdress low spots and finish over-seeding thin or bare patches.
- Apply crabgrass preventers before April 15. Do not apply to areas that will be seeded.
MISCELLANEOUS
- Termites begin swarming. Termites can be distinguished from ants by their thick waists and straight antennae. Ants have slender waists and elbowed antennae.
- Mole young are born in chambers deep underground.
- Honeybees are swarming.
- Wasp and hornet queens begin nesting.
- Hummingbirds return from their winter home in Central America
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University of Missouri Extension |
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