You guys know what a nut I am when it comes to early, mid, and late spring tulips. What you may not remember is that you have to order your tulips now (like August or Sept) in order to have them shipped to you at the right time in the fall. If you wait too late, most suppliers/growers of tulips will be sold out of the most popular colors and styles. In case you have forgotten, here are some pics of my beautiful early spring tulips.

The key with tulips is to get a lot! I know that sounds like some sort of sales pitch, but you seriously need to plant tulips by the 100s and not by the 10s. The reason is that tulips look stunning in groups of 100 or more. You can see in this post where I planted 300 tulips and that is what you see in the pics here.

The next key is to buy tulips varieties that come up in succession so you get a nice long bloom time. What that means is you should buy a batch of “early spring tulips” and a batch of “mid spring tulips” and a final grouping of “late spring tulips” and then plant them all mixed together in a large bed or space. Trust me, it is totally cool to wake up in the AM and see a bunch of red early tulips in a spot, and then the next week see them all turned to yellow, and then a month later they have all faded into orange, or whatever, I think you get the picture.

There are two great places to get the best quality tulips:

Breck’s bulbs is a great supplier and very reliable. And, I have also recently used a company I found on Amazon, see their offerings below.

Very simple lawn care tips here today folks… You guys know that I talk a lot about mowing and watering properly, as well as fertilization schedules and insect and diesease control. But there are two simple lawn care basics that can really set your lawn apart in the neighborhood and give you the edge over the “Jones’s.” Afterall, don’t we want to look better than our neighbors? Don’t we want our lawns to be the ones talked about at the next meeting of the Home Owners’ Assocation? Here you go:

Clean, weed-whacked landscape edges! “Beauteus Maximus”

yeah, that is my own crib, in case you are wondering!

First off, you need to weed wack around, well, “the edges”: every single time you manicure your lawn. Just look at how beautiful and buttoned up this looks with nice green grass going right up to the landscape beds. If you make sure to do your string trimming each and everytime you mow, it will not take that long to do each time. The mistake folks make is they skip this step here and there and things get away from them and become a hassle.

See how clean this looks after a nice BLADE edging?

Much better than using just the string trimmer. Tight!

Next, and more importantly, you need to use a bladed edger around your driveway and sidewalks. Don’t use your string trimmer for edging as it just does not give the same defined look you get when you use a blade edger. I have an old John Deer trimmer that I purchased about 15 years ago and got an eger attachment for, but you can get ones that work just as well at the link below. Just make sure you have a detachable shaft trimmer that will accept, you guessed it, string trimmer attachments. These edger attachments fit on most string trimmers and weed wackers and are convenient and do a great job for homeowners.

Here is my very old and trusty John Deer edger attachment.

Just make sure your string trimmer will accept attachments.

If it will, then ANY standard edger attachment will work. See below.

Long story short:

1) you need to weed whack and you can do so with a cheap one like the one below (make sure it has detach shaft capability)

2) if you already have a weed wacker with a detachable shaft, then get an edger attachment like these below.

That is really it guys. If your lawn is green then that is one thing, but if you have the edges (the details) cared for as well, you are bound to get noticed on your street. You don’t want to be “that guy” who lets his lawn turn to garbage. Instead, be “the one” who has the perfect lawn that turns heads! It ain’t that difficult!

Lawn Care tips are always free here on Life and Lawns! Tell a friend eh?

Wondering about what fertilizer is best and when to put it down? Get my custom lawn fertilizing schedule here!