Garden Talk: How can I prevent snow mold on my lawn right now?

Jill and Rick Van Duyvendyk answer all your gardening questions in Garden Talk on 650 CKOM and 980 CJME every Sunday morning at 9 a.m. Here are some questions and answers from the April 5 show:

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These questions and answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.

Q: How can I prevent snow mold on my lawn right now?

A: Once any ice starts melting, it’s going to be very moist underneath which provides great conditions for snow mold. As soon as the grass gets exposed, take a leaf rake and keep fluffing up your grass.

You’re not raking it so hard, you’re digging up the soil, it’s just a light fluffing to get the air into the grass. If snow mold does some damage, do some top dressing and reseeding in those areas.

You can use a snowblower on the lawn and spread the snow evenly onto any areas of the grass that are exposed already and that will melt really quickly.

Q: Should I cut back my ornamental grasses in spring?

A: Cut them as low to the ground as possible and do it as early as possible, before you start getting any new growth.

Q: What do I feed my goji plants?

A: Don’t go too high in nitrogen. Do a low nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium mix. Even a house plant fertilizer would be fine, or an all-purpose 20-20-20 or 14-14-14.

Alfalfa tea is also good. All you want right now is just root development, you don’t need a ton of top growth until you’re ready to put them outside.

Q: Will shorter trees like an amber maple or Japanese lilac planted near a retaining wall cause any issues?

A: If they are planted at the bottom of the retaining wall, then you won’t have any issues at all. If you plant them at the top you’ll get some big roots growing into any cracks in the wall. You could plant some taller shrubs at the top but I wouldn’t plant a big tree. Plant about 10 feet away from the wall.

Q: My potatoes saved from last year are sprouting. Can I cut the sprouts back?

A: You can cut them back and leave a quarter inch. It won’t hurt them. You can still eat those potatoes, or you can plant them out later.

Q: Can I take out an area of lawn and amend the soil with something to help to hold moisture?

A: If you only have two inches of soil in that spot, you can put four or six inches of soil, then it won’t dry out as much. In the middle of summer save the sod from the top and just transplant after adding to the soil.

Groundskeeper fertilizer now has a 14 nitrogen mix that has biochar as well. Biochar is a charcoal that helps. build up the bacteria in the soil to feed the roots better, and hold moisture better. It has iron, sulfur as well.

Q: How do I choose a healthy onion set?

A: It is really important to inspect your bulbs when you’re purchasing them too because you never know how they’ve been stored.

Onion sets should be firm and not shrivelled. If they’re mushy, they’ve been stored somewhere too moist, if they’re shrivelled, it means that they’ve been too dry. Make sure you got a nice firm round bulb.

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