You should have been here yesterday...

There is a garden saying that I have seen many times that reads "You should have been here yesterday, my garden looked perfect then."

So it goes this past weekend. I was in my yard most of Saturday morning planting a few things and doing some cleanup. Before lunch I looked around and thought to myself that the yard looked as good as it gets...darn near perfect.

A few hours later and while not totally destroyed, it looked much different. My area of Minneapolis did not get the worst of the storm and hail, but it did it's share of damage.

Here are a few random tips and things to keep in mind if your yard and garden had some storm damage.

It is important to clean up all the debris and foliage around the yard. Cleaning up the debris can help prevent disease problems.

Perennials should be given a week or so of recovery time and then given an all purpose granular fertilizer to help give them a boost of energy to help them thru the rest of this growing season.

Annuals that are totally defoliated will probably not recover and should be replaced.

Annuals that still have leaves on them and are not totally crushed should be given at least a week of recovery time to see how they look. If they start growing and look as if they will recover then they should be fertilized with a water soluble fertilizer.

The only trees that need to have a wound dressing type of product applied to cut limbs and branches are oaks and elms.

Annuals will help fill in the holes in perennial gardens.

Most trees and shrubs will recover and should generate new leaves. It will be important to keep hail damaged trees and shrubs well watered during the summer and fall. The hail has stressed the plant and what you want to do is reduce any other stress on the plant such as needing water.

It is absolutely not too late to plant or replant warm weather vegetables such as tomatoes and peppers. I didn't plant them until late about the middle of June last year and I still had a great crop.

Make your day a good one.