OUTAGAMIE COUNTY (NBC 26) — On a cold and windy April day, Lauren connected with Mike Schumacher, a landscape expert with Lowney's Landscaping Center. Schumacher says many people are eager to plant this year but waiting could be beneficial for your yard and plants.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story, with additional details added for the web.)
We are standing in the greenhouse at Lowney’s Landscaping Center, we are talking about spring and lack thereof. We are surrounded by plants in the greenhouse and talking to Mike Schumacher, a landscape expert is here to tell us when we should start planting flowers, trees, and bushes this year. Mike recommends waiting a bit before beginning to plant.
“We usually say Mother’s Day is our kickoff,” Schumacher said.
That is when ground temperatures are above 50 degrees and plants can sustain overnight.
You can put plants in right now, but we get freezes overnight and that is bad for the plants. If they freeze up, they can go dormant again and have to restart. To avoid having the plants restart, Lowney’s recommends waiting until after Mother’s Day.
How do we know the temperature of the soil? Are we expected to go outside and measure that ourselves? Mike says there are websites you can go to that will tell you what the ground temperature is. Those websites are saying the temperature right now is around 38 degrees. This time last year we were around 48 degrees, so it is different from year to year.
Once we see temperatures in the 50s, and we do plant, is there anything we can do to protect our plants if the ground does freeze again?
"If you can wait, it would be best for the plants, but we are in an industry where time is money and you have to move forward. You never know what the weather is going to do. Frost in late May, June, July isn’t common but is possible. Plants are resilient and they may recover but sometimes they don’t. What it comes down to is the care we are giving the plants," Schumacher said.
