Continuing drought in Nebraska brings yard and landscape headaches

By Aaron Hegarty

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    OMAHA, Nebraska (KMTV) — Scott Evans says patience for his yard’s green-up this year is running thin.

“Mother Nature doesn’t follow a calendar,” he quipped. “She’ll green up the plants when she wants to.”

Still, there’s things you should know as people start to think more about lawn and landscape care, he said. Evans is the Horticulture Program Coordinator for the Nebraska Extension Douglas-Sarpy Counties Office.

Almost all of Nebraska is in a drought, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System. Much of western Iowa is experiencing a drought, too.

“This is a long-term problem,” 3 News Now Meteorologist Mark Stitz said.

Omaha was behind average in rainfall by more than nine inches last year, Stitz said. Snow doesn’t deliver much moisture over the winter months, he said, and snowfall was half its typical this year.

“This is the time we really need to make up some of that moisture,” he said. But it’ll take more than a few rainfalls.

Evans said this year’s green-up is a smidge behind.

The first thing Evans suggested shouldn’t be a surprise: watering. He said it’s a good idea to start with plants that were added in 2022 before moving on to more established landscape plants. He warned it’s easy to over water.

“We don’t think about watering our landscapes during the winter,” Evans said. “We should, especially when we don’t have that precipitation. Our impacts we’re going to start seeing are on the overall health of our plants, especially our evergreens … those can really be impacted by winter droughts and entering spring in a drought. We can start seeing some yellowing.”

On top of watering, he said it’s easy to moisture the moisture of your soil. He said to take an 8-10 inch screwdriver and stick it all the way in the soil before pulling it out slowly.

“If it (the soil) is dry, doesn’t come out, or (the screwdriver) is really hard to get in the ground, we should probably go ahead and get some water on it,” he said. If it’s too wet, he said, the screwdriver would come out muddy.

He said it’s important to bring patience, too. Evans said it’s a couple of weeks too early to consider fertilizer. You don’t want to force something before it’s ready, he said.

“We are really excited to be outside,” Evans said. “But let plants break that dormancy on their own. Don’t be too worried about things right now … Give your plants a little bit of time. Things are just a bit slow.”

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