Spring is finally here – time to thinking gardening

• Scott LaMar
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Scott LaMar has worked in both radio and television for more than four decades.
  
  Currently, LaMar is the Host and Executive Producer of The Spark program on WITF-FM, 89.5 & 93.3 in Harrisburg, Pa.
  
  Previously, LaMar was WITF TV’s Sr. Public Affairs producer and produced the station’s award-winning weekly public affairs TV program, Smart Talk.
  
  In addition to his on-air duties, LaMar has moderated political candidate debates, including those for candidates running for Pennsylvania governor and the U.S. Senate and was a regular contributor to BBC World News TV before and after the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.
  
  LaMar often emcees or moderates local events and has gone as far as California to emcee a national event.
  
  The American Society of Civil Engineers honored LaMar with their national Excellence in Journalism award in 2020. He has been nominated for five Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards.
  
  LaMar and The Spark have been recognized throughout the Central Pennsylvania community including ADVOZ Lancaster’s “Dignity in Dialogue Award”, the South-Central Assembly’s “Regional Citizen Award” and was named a “Humanitarian Hero” by The Humane Society of the United States/Pennsylvania.
  
  A native of Coatesville, Pa., LaMar has also worked as a broadcast news anchor, sports play-by-play announcer and manager.

"Yellow daffodil garden, full frame. For more flowers (click"

Aired; March 26th, 2024.

It is officially spring. Daffodils have bloomed for the last few weeks and now it’s time to really get down to gardening for 2024.

Horticulturalist Erica Jo Shaffer was on The Spark Tuesday to talk about bulbs, getting a start on vegetable gardens, mulching and seeding the lawn.

Erica Jo Shaffer on The Spark

Daffodils have been especially prolific this year and Shaffer described how to grow even more daffodils next year,”When your daffodils get done flowering, if you notice your clumps aren’t flowering as much anymore, it’s because they’re busy down underneath the earth making small bulbs. And then they’re all competing with each other. So after they get done flowering and just as the foliage starts to yellow and this is pretty much on, daffodils, snowdrops, crocuses, hyacinths, you can actually dig your clump up and divide them and have more and then put them right back in the ground. Don’t store them in your garage. Don’t wait till autumn to plant them, dig them up and put them right in. And then as a tip, our shovels go in at a 45 degree angle, and often we would slice the bulbs, and then they’re dead. So you have to really hold your shovel up straight and go into the ground straight and go all the way around the clump, and then just, like, lift it up. Then you can put bulbs back in like five and a clump five and a clump, find your friends, your garden friends, or people who like all those daffodils, give them some and pass them out.”\

Shaffer said it’s too early in the season to mulch, especially since we’re gotten so much rain lately, but she said she prefers pine bark mulch to wood mulch,”You have to ask is it bark mulch or is it wood. Because wood usually looks good for about three weeks to a month. And then it goes to that nasty gray color. And that’s why they dye it. Is that good for your plants or how long does it last. Then here we are at mulch volcanoes. Like do you even need mulch. You know sometimes people got mulch that’s even in the regular garden beds. Suddenly your mulch is four and six inches deep. And when we do get rain in the summertime, it can’t even get through the mulch to the root. So maybe you want to just rake it, save yourself some money and fluff it up and rake it so it looks good again and ride it for another year.”