April Garden Calendar: Time When Everything Blooms
Now is the peak time for wildflower watching and enjoying the initial fruits of your labors in the winter. The April garden calendar also brings about 10% of the year's total rainfall, and for most of the state, a frost is a pretty rare thing. April is the time when most casual gardeners start, and the ones who were well prepared in March find that their prep work has paid off in reduced weeding time. This is the time to allocate and plant your spring blooming perennials.
Fortunately, by April, the weather has warmed up to the point where you don't need to worry too much about wanting to stay indoors it's sunny, it's breezy, and there's nothing quite like being in the garden with your trowel, making the flowers bloom. April is the prime month to plant your summer annuals, and seeds for cucumbers, melons and zucchini, and to set out your tomato and pepper transplants. It's also time to pull out the spring bulbs that have died naturally, and replace them with your summer bulbs, like gladiolas, lilies and mums. Like clockwork, do your biweekly bulb planting to keep your flower beds looking brilliant. Mid to late April is the time to plant frost tender sub-tropicals, including hibiscus and citrus.
A Forest Through the Trees (and Shrubs)April is prime time to improve your landscape design by tree and shrub planting. When you're examining your trees and shrubs, make sure their roots haven't curled 'round see if you can pull them up out of the container at the nursery. If the roots have circled around, don't buy the tree (or if you have, take it back to the nursery); those ingrown roots can eventually kill the tree, because they don't spread well into the soil to grab nutrients and provide stability.
Either dig a square hole, or score out some growth paths with loosened earth; you want to make it easy for the roots to grow outwards into native soil. Check with the nursery about whether or not you need to add peat moss or organic composting material to help your new shrubs grow. As a money saving tip, you can buy shrubs in one-gallon containers they'll have caught up with their larger nursery-mates in about two years.
Pruning This MonthIt wouldn't be time in the garden if it didn't involve pruning shears. Candidates for a trim in April are spring bloomers (once their flowering has stopped), and includes philadelphus, redbud, ribes, lilac, ceanothus and quince. As always, examine carefully before pruning, particularly if you think the plant was frost damaged.
When in doubt, leave it that bare and sickly branch may bud with new leaves in a week or two. Make a priority out of trimming away diseased bits of your plants; a little diligence now can save you a lot of work later.Be sure, when pruning, to clear away any dead branches and detritus; they provide a roosting home for parasites and aphids, particularly if left in the shade under the branches. When you're done with the pruning, mulch the shrub beds and root beds of your trees you'll be glad you did.
Lawn CareApril is when most lawn owners discover that their lawn isnt as even as they'd like. If you were smart, you held on to the extra lawn seed from last year; you can lay on new seed in the barren patches and lay on some mulch they'll germinate in a couple of weeks with regular (twice a day) watering.Sometimes, it's not that the lawn is patchy; it's that the yard is mostly bare with patches of lawn. At this point, you do the same procedure as above, but do it to more of the lawn it may be worth it to till what you've got under and start over.
If you're laying down a new lawn, the best way to do it is by laying down sod. If you can just seed your existing soil, you'll save some money, but it may not work as well. When choosing what type of grass to seed in, keep in mind that California has been short on water every summer since 1990, and take a grass type that will thrive with less water, like a tall fescue blend, rather than bluegrass or rye grass. Finally, a bit of naturalist advice grass and trees are competing species; don't seed grass within thirty feet of young trees, as the grass will release chemicals that attack the tree's roots.
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When you dig the placement hole for your new tree, dig one that's twice the diameter of the container you got it in, but you don't need it to go any deeper than the container. 
A bit of warning if you used an emergence herbicide back in the winter, it's going to take heroic measures to re-seed your lawn, and it may be better to wait until next April to do it.
