April is still a good time to add plants to your San Diego garden. Plus, you’ll find nurseries well stocked with blooming perennials. Here are some April gardening tips for a beautiful garden all year round.
Grow Bold and Beautiful Dahlias
Dahlias bring huge, beautiful blooms to your summer and fall garden, and they aren’t hard to grow. Dahlias and tomatoes grow in similar conditions. So, if you can grow tomatoes, you can grow dahlias.
Dahlia flowers can be very large and heavy. Because of this, most dahlias will need to be supported with stakes or tomato cages. With the warm climate in our San Diego gardens, you don’t have to remove your dahlia tubers over winter, but make sure they have good drainage. They will die back at the end of their growing season. If you don’t want to pull them out of the ground, cut them back so they’re just several inches tall. They’ll start growing again in the spring. If you do remove them, you can divide them and get more dahlias for next year.
San Diego Vegetable Gardens
April is transition time in your vegetable garden and your yard. We still have a couple months of cool weather left, so you can continue to plant cool-season vegetables that will mature before summer’s hot weather starts. Some options are beets, carrots, celeriac, chard, chives, endive, leeks, green onions, parsley, parsnips, endive, lettuce, peas, potatoes (white), radishes, rutabaga and spinach.
It’s also time to start your warm-season vegetables as long as your soil has warmed up. When the soil is warm enough, you can plant snap beans, cantaloupe and other melons, sweet corn, cucumber, eggplant, Florence Fennel, peppers, sweet potato, squash (summer and winter), tomatoes and watermelon.
Most summer vegetables need soil temperatures in the 60s, but requirements vary. Check the Master Gardener Association’s Vegetable Planting Guide for more information about the needs of the vegetables you’d like to grow in your San Diego garden. And don’t forget to prepare your soil. Healthy soil is imperative for a successful garden.
Fight Powdery Mildew
Spring weather can bring ideal conditions for powdery mildew. It attacks roses, grapes, melons, squash and other susceptible plants. One way to fight it is to hose off these plants every morning with a jet of water. Fungicides can also slow mildew’s spread. If you’re still having trouble staying ahead of it, look for plants and seeds that have been bred for resistance.
San Diego Garden Tips Source
A lot of information for San Diego Gardening Tips comes from the Master Gardener Association of San Diego County. They are a great resource for all of your gardening needs including planting, pests, vegetables, and water use. They even have a free hotline where you can get your home gardening and pest control problems answered.