Until things settle down in the world, the Yorkton and District Horticultural Society meetings are on hold; but we can still keep in touch! Be sure to visit our website at www.yorktonhort.ca, and rest assured that we will keep you posted about what is going on with the group! Check out the beautiful spring photos that will put us in a cheery frame of mind!
It鈥檚 the time of year! When the snow is starting to melt, leaving patches of bare lawn that look dirty and dusty鈥nd, what鈥檚 that? Some kind of mold? Well guess what, that鈥檚 exactly what it is! Snow mold!
Snow mold is a fungus that has been hiding quietly under the snow all winter, and around here chances are it is the gray snow mold, Typhula blight. There is also a more damaging pink snow mold, and in spite of the pretty name, it can kill our lawn from below. The gray snow mold really kills just the tops of the grass, with scary-looking cobwebs of mold called mycelia spreading across the lawn. If we rake it well when weather permits and take away the debris, giving our lawns a chance to be exposed to sunshine and drying spring breezes, our lawns will come back.
Not that our work is done: the spores of snow mold can stay in the lawn over the summer. What to do? In the fall we should be careful to rake up any leaves or dead thatch, which is where snow mold loves to spend winter vacation. Mowing the lawn before the first snowfall will also help to clean things up.
But be careful! Some people have an allergy to snow mold, and that鈥檚 why during bright spring weather, snow mold sufferers are wandering around with streaming eyes and tissues clutched in their hands. Other symptoms may include nasal congestion, coughing, and itchy eyes. All those snow mold spores that are exposed in the spring can cause reactions that make spring that much less enjoyable! So take care; if you are prone to this problem, but just can鈥檛 wait to work outside anyway, perhaps wearing a bandanna over your nose and mouth might help a little. A bandanna might make your neighbors wonder about you, but it might help filter out some of the spores that are stirred up by your yard work!
While the weather still hasn鈥檛 been consistently 鈥渟pring-like鈥�, isn鈥檛 it a joy to see the longer days and some of the other signs of spring. There are reports of crows and geese being back, and even hearing the water trickling through down-spouts is like spring music!
Every year, we gardeners wonder how our perennials have fared over the winter. Time will tell. Let鈥檚 hope that we don鈥檛 have too many gaps to fill in this year! Although, with so much stress and worry in 2020 so far, puttering around in our gardens seems like the perfect balm to help us re-connect with nature and ourselves.
Use this pre-garden time to read up on some new gardening topics. It鈥檚 always interesting to visit the University of Saskatchewan webpage (https://research-groups.usask.ca/fruit) to see what is coming up, and read about their latest work on various fruit crops. There is also a list of upcoming events: let鈥檚 hope optimistically that they will be able to go ahead.
The great garden designer Gertrude Jekyll said: 鈥淭he lesson I have thoroughly learnt, and wish to pass on to others, is to know the enduring happiness that the love of a garden gives.鈥�
So true! Let鈥檚 pray for health for all in these trying days. Have a great week!
