April showers bring May flowers, but while nature provides the precipitation, there’s much you can do to ready your landscaping to look its best this season. Here are just a few tips:
· Examine shrubs for winter injury. Prune all dead and weakened wood.
· Groundcovers can be mowed to remove winter burn and tidy plants up. Raise mowers to their highest settings. Fertilize and water to encourage rapid regrowth.
· Winter mulches should be removed from roses. Complete pruning promptly. Remove only dead wood from climbers at this time. Cultivate lightly, working in some compost or other organic matter.
· Do not prune boxwoods before April 15.
· Prune spring flowering ornamentals after they finish blooming.
· When crabapples are in bloom, hardy annuals may be transplanted outdoors.
In the center of St. Charles County is one of the best places to buy spring plantings or ask for gardening/landscaping advice…Daniels Farm & Greenhouses. Actually, there are over 15 greenhouses over 1.25 acres.
On a cool spring day, it’s fun to visit the warm greenhouses, which are all covered from the spring rains.
“If you are looking for more than landscape suggestions and want to hire out the hard labor, have us design and landscape your area,” offers Monica and Daniel Koenig, 2nd generation owners.
Daniels Farm started with just a few greenhouses and has expanded over two generations.
Mr. & Mrs. Ray Koenig moved to the farm, on Jungermann Rd. in St. Peters, in 1956. It started as a 70-acre farm with approximately 550 apple trees and 500 peach trees in their orchard.
The family raised strawberries (started u-pick berries in the early 60’s), and many other fruits and vegetables. Most crops were hand planted, hand picked, hand packed and taken to local grocery stores and produce row off Broadway in St. Louis. Some produce was sold at St. Charles Farmers Market in the 70’s and 80’s.
The first greenhouse was built in the mid 1960’s to raise a few hanging baskets requested by produce customers. By the middle of the next decade a total of four greenhouses had been built next to the barn.
Upon the retirement of Daniel’s father, Ray, in 1990, Daniel took possession and responsibility of Koenig’s on the Hill in August of that year.
He built five new Quonset greenhouses to replace the original greenhouses. Over the next 10 years, Daniel continued expanding the farm. In 1993, he set up a mum growing field for 15,000 plants, installed a drip irrigation system and built the sales and display area in front of the greenhouses.
In 1994, they started selling a few trees and shrubs. The nursery expanded in 1998, and in 2003 added rock bins for gravel, mulch, and topsoil.
In 1997 the business name was changed to Daniel’s Farm & Greenhouses.
Now, with over 15 Greenhouses, the selection is huge and the colorful greenhouses are breathtaking. “Although prior to Mother’s Day is too early to plant tender greenhouse plants outside, it’s not too early to plan. So come by and visit.”
Daniels Farm & Greenhouses is located at 352 Jungermann Rd., St. Peters. 636.441.5048.