Time to ...

Get out the plastic pots and sow seed indoors

for most annuals and perennials. By waiting till now, your seedlings will be less likely to get spindly by planting time. If reusing pots, wash well to avoid defeat from lingering fungi (the dishwasher is fine). Warmth (70-75 degrees) hastens germination, but once seeds have sprouted, lower temperatures (60-65 degrees) are better.

Sow dill, lettuce and spinach seed outdoors and plant potatoes, onions (sets or plants) and more peas.

Apply preemergent herbicides to lawns. These granular compounds kill crabgrass and other annual weeds just as the seeds germinate. An amusing mnemonic times preemergent application to when the magnolia leaves are the size of a mouse's ear. Complete this task by mid-April or you'll have crabgrass anyway. Corn gluten is the organic version.

Prolong bouquets of daffodils by cutting stems with unopened flowers; if the bud is beginning to angle from the stem, it's ready. Fully open flowers will last only half as long in a vase as they will in the garden.

Prune forsythia as soon as flowers drop - and not again for 12 months. To get wonderfully wild-looking, super-long wands of flowers next year, cut the whole plant almost to the ground. Causes of insipid blooming: late pruning, not enough sun.

Treat potted Easter bulbs properly for future rejuvenation. After flowers fade, water lightly and provide medium light. Keep the foliage green and healthy as long as possible. Plant in the garden in May, separating the bulbs. They may take a year off before blooming again, and finicky tulips often aren't worth it.

Unless very severe frost is predicted, prune roses (except spring-blooming ramblers), buddleia (butterfly bush) and caryopteris. With so many types, rose instructions must be general: Cut stems just above an outward-growing shoot or new (or impending) growth. Buddleia and caryopteris should be cut just above the lowest two pairs of new shoots on each stem.

Finish cleaning out flower beds. Alas, last fall's leaves don't make a satisfactory mulch as is.

Complete orders of perennials and shrubbery from catalogs.

Repeat this until you believe it: All of April is a potential frost period. Garden accordingly.

- Michael Martin Mills