Around the Yard

Things to do this week:

* Tune up tools. When you finish bare-root planting, but before the spring gardening season gets underway, clean and protect garden tools. Wipe boiled linseed oil on wood handles and allow to sit overnight, then wipe off excess and buff. Clean metal blades and protect them with something like Break Free CLP or gun oil. Sharpen blades on spades and hoes with what’s known as a “bastard file.”

* Snap sprouts. If a bare-root rose you buy has already sprouted at the nursery and new growth is normal-looking, go ahead and plant it. But if the new shoots are pale and elongated, snap them off and then plant. One grower said that this is like “asking a parent to give up their firstborn,” but try it. Secondary buds will quickly replace them with shoots that are stronger, darker and more compact.

* Feed trees. Fertilize established fruit trees--deciduous kinds as well as citrus--with an ordinary, inexpensive granular fertilizer that is primarily nitrogen. February’s rains will carry the fertilizer to the roots. Don’t put any next to the trunk, but scatter granules out by the drip line of the tree, which is where the furthest branches reach.