$1 for 3 months. Save 97%.
$1 for 3 months. Save 97%.

Garden planner: Soaker hoses and sprinklers

Stephanie Bruner

This week

- Watering with soaker hoses or small stationary sprinklers wastes less water than traditional overhead sprinklers. It's easier to put out soaker hoses now than waiting until plants reach their full size. Position soaker hoses so that they're a few inches from the base of plants. And don't string more than 100 feet of soaker hose together—that way, you'll have adequate water pressure to water the entire length of the hose.

- Start planting gladiolus in mid May. You can plant a few new corms every two or three weeks to keep them blooming all summer.

- Start pinching the tops of sedum, asters and chrysanthemums to keep plants bushy and compact and to push bloom season back to fall. You'll need to pinch every couple of weeks until mid- to late summer.

This month

- Annuals in containers do best if they're fertilized frequently. If you know you can't commit to a regular feeding schedule, choose potting mix with slow release fertilizer in it — annuals are heavy feeders and that's better than nothing.

- If you're adding grass clippings to your compost pile, stir it often and add "brown" material such as sawdust or straw to keep the pile from getting smelly. Grass clippings by themselves are great mulch between rows of vegetable beds, as long as you haven't treated your lawn.

- If you didn't put hoops around peonies earlier, put in three or four stakes per plant and loop string around them to prevent the top-heavy flowers from landing face-down in the mud during the first heavy rain.