Music - Amazing Grace Created for Cathy Easter Blossoms Easter Blossoms Forgiveness.
Farm & Garden · 2 days ago · the season because frozen blossoms do not go on to become fruits....
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F ARM & G ARDEN PAGE 2D / SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2020 news-journal.com NEIL SPERRY SHANIQUA DAVIS T his is the time of year that I get a variety of questions about lawns, and the clock is running out. The “clock” is the coming cooler weather and the first frost where your turfgrass will go dormant. When should a homeowner do their last fertilization? Should you seed/sod a new lawn now? And when do you quit watering your lawn? You have the rest of September to fertilize with a “winter-izer” fertilizer. It is a very beneficial practice but do not do it too late. Generally, research recommends the absolute latest fall fertilizer application should be made at least six weeks before the location’s historic first-frost date. Our historic first frost is mid-November. So, six weeks before that is October 1. Your lawn is preparing for winter dormancy and a late feeding could be more disrup- tive than helpful. Do add lime… if you need it. If you need to add lime to reduce acidic soils, add lime now to your lawns. Lime helps to neutralize the pH in our commonly low pH soils. Lime is not really a fertilizer although it does contain Calcium, a secondary nutrient for plants. Lime’s purpose is to provide a better environment for the plants to grow. One of its better attributes is that it allows nutrients to be more available. Keep water- ing until all vis- ible growth has stopped. It is true that your lawn and shrubs and other perennials need moisture year-round, but our climate typically provides enough moisture in our winter not to water. In the coming weeks (and certainly after our first frost) you can completely turn off your sprinkler system. When to turn the irriga- tion system back on? April is naturally a good time. The grass will likely have started growing at that time and warm, drier weather would be starting. If you are looking to start a new lawn. Certainly, you can sod or seed now but cold weather is coming. The big- gest concern is if the grasses begins to establish and the winter shuts down active growth and establishment. Watch and treat for diseas- es that are at their worst in the fall. Most fungal problems in lawns get their start in the spring. Do treat for weeds in the fall to help stop the early spring weeds. You can (and should) treat for weeds each fall. Problematic warm season perennial weeds such as Spurge and Virginia Buttonweed can be killed now before they go dormant. Annual spring weeds such as Lawn Burweed and Henbit can be best controlled with pre-emergent herbicides as they are just trying to germinate. Products may not be clear- ly marked as “preemergent” but may instead have lan- guage on them such as “weed preventer.” So, being familiar with some of the active ingre- dients can be helpful. Common active ingredi- ents used for pre-emergence control include prodiamine, dithiopyr, pendimethalin, isoxaben and others. I have long recommended Atrazine. There are lots of products on the shelves at lots of stores that contain this ac- tive ingredient. It is very safe to use on our most common turf grass, St. Augustine. Don’t forget about the Gregg County Master Gar- deners annual fall plant sale. Each plant has been expert- ly propagated by Master Gardeners and many will be plants not usually found at the local big box stores. Our Master Gardeners will also be on hand to answer plant care and gardening questions. The sale will be 9 a.m. to noon Sept. 26 at the Longview Arboretum. Come early for best selection and find trea- sures to add color and beauty to your home and garden. This fall fundraiser ben- efits GCMGA community outreach and educational programs in Gregg County. For more information, follow us on Facebook, https:// www.facebook.com/gregg- countymastergardeners/ or call the Gregg County Master Gardeners Association at 903-236-8429. — Shaniqua Davis is the Extension agent for agriculture and natural resources for Gregg County. Email: [email protected]. Now is time to think about fall lawn care D ear Neil: What is this plant with the pur- ple flowers? It has invaded my flowerbed. More importantly, how can I get rid of it? It’s spreading like crazy. Answer: It’s Mexican petunia, Ruellia britto- niana. You’re right on its invasive nature. How- ever, kept in bounds by use of concrete bound- aries, etc., it’s a handsome perennial. It’s just too bad when it invades. You’ll need to remove it physically (shovel, unfortunately), then install a root barrier around either the bed where you don’t want it or the bed where it’s currently growing. If you don’t have any of it growing in your yard, it may be coming from seed from a garden nearby, in which case you’ll have to eliminate it as the seedlings sprout. Dear Neil: I bought some Daisy May daisies last spring and they did wonderful- ly. By the end of the summer some of the leaves were starting to turn brown. What should I do? Answer: Most Shasta daisies have a few issues after continuous weeks in the Texas heat. Your plants look relatively fine, and if you were happy with their performance last spring, I’d just keep them tidy this fall and prepare for an even better show come spring 2021 since they’ll be so much better established. Trim out the browning stems and foliage as they appear. Dear Neil: I am wondering why I had no flowers on my okra this summer. After an onion crop in early spring, I used soil from my composter, cotton bur compost and manure. I fertilized it twice and watered every couple of days. What could have been wrong? Answer: I’m wondering if the plants might have been starved by all that organic matter. If you have too much fresh organic matter, nitro- gen can be tied up and unavailable for use by the plants. That doesn’t mean that you want to ap- ply excessive amounts of nitrogen. You can use the amount of new growth on the stems as your indicator. I’m also assuming the plants were in full sun. That would be a requirement. Dear Neil: I bought some St. Augustine sod for shady areas in the hopes I could stop erosion. What isn’t already dead is sending up vertical shoots. It is producing no runners along the ground. I see no visible insects or diseases, and the lawn is irrigated. Where have I messed up? Answer: Remember that to grow success- fully, St. Augustine requires at least five or six hours of direct sunlight daily. It really sounds to me like your sod didn’t get anywhere near that amount. That’s exactly the behavior St. Au- gustine will show when it’s in too much shade. I’ve seen it happen personally with sod in my own lawn. It’s probably time to shift over to a shade-tolerant groundcover. Dear Neil: I have two 5-year-old Savannah hollies planted on the west side of our house. They receive shade part of the day, but a lot of afternoon sun. They haven’t grown much at all and now their trunks have started splitting. Why might that be happening? Answer: Savannah hollies are more par- ticular about soils and exposure than some of our other holly varieties. For example, they are absolutely not suited to alkaline soils, so they are limited to the eastern quarter of Texas. For some reason, nurseries carry them in areas where they’re not suited, and it takes five or 10 years for them to start showing signs of failing. Trunk damage due to bark splitting is one symp- tom, but iron deficiency and lethargic growth are more common. Oakland hollies are also fair- ly upright, and they are far more adaptable. I be- lieve they would be better solutions in the long run. Water them by hand, however, for their first couple of years to get them established. Dear Neil: What is this, and how do I get rid of it? It started on my Black Diamond crape myrtle, but now it’s spread to all of my other crape myrtles. Answer: This is crape myrtle bark scale, a relatively new insect in America. It showed up first in the North Dallas area and remained there for several years, but now it has spread across the South. It is extremely unsightly, but it does little permanent harm in most cases. The systemic insecticide Imidacloprid applied as a soil drench in mid-May offers the best prevention. Watch for a black ladybug beetle with two orange spots on its wings to appear. They are predators and are very much benefi- cial. Nymphs of the ladybugs are very unusual looking, so don’t get them confused and start spraying. — Have a question for Neil? Mail it to him in care of this news- paper or e-mail him at [email protected]. Neil regrets that he cannot reply to questions individually. Flowerbed is being invaded by Mexican petunia Special to the News-Journal Crape myrtle bark scale can cause perma- nent damage to the plant if not taken care of. BY LEE REICH Associated Press T he weather has gotten weirder and more un- predictable, but there is a small way that gardeners can take more control: find- ing and exploiting microcli- mates. I’ve been looking for them around my upstate New York yard as cooler weather slowly creeps in. Microclimates are pockets of air and soil that are colder or warmer, or more or less humid, than the general cli- mate due to the influence of slopes, walls and pavement. Every parcel of land, from a 40-acre farm field to a quar- ter-acre lot, will have some microclimates. Siting plants with this in mind can be the difference between whether or not they thrive or even survive. Moderating winter’s cold I’m banking, for instance, on the slightly warmer tem- peratures near the wall of my house to get my stewartia tree, which is borderline cold-hardy around here, through my winters, when temperatures often drop to minus 20 degrees Fahren- heit. Proximity to concrete, stone or any other material that retains the sun’s heat also provides a slightly warmer microclimate. I’m expecting spring to arrive early, with a colorful blaze of tulips, in the bed pressed up against the south side of my brick house. Even sooner, in late win- ter, winter aconites will be spreading their small, yellow blossoms in the slightly raised bed surrounding my terrace. Those aconites warm more quickly thanks to the double benefit of raised beds and a concrete wall surrounding them. (Actually, the benefit is more for me, getting to enjoy their blooms extra early.) Keeping warmth at bay Microclimates can also be useful for keeping plants cooler. By training my hardy kiwi vines right up against the shaded, north sides of their hefty supports, I keep direct winter sunlight from warming their trunks. This avoids the splitting that occurs when their trunks are alternately warmed during winter days, then rapidly cooled as the winter sun drops below the horizon. Diluted white latex paint on the trunks of young trees keeps them cold through winter days and nights to likewise prevent damage. By planting the coveted blue poppy in a bed on the east side of my house, I hoped to give the plant the summer coolness it de- mands. Even that east bed was still too sultry, however; the plants collapsed. Microclimates are import- ant when growing fruiting plants that blossom early in the season because frozen blossoms do not go on to become fruits. Early-season bloomers need microcli- mates that are slow to warm up. The north side of a house or other building stays cool because it’s shaded from winter sun. Slopes play a role, too South-facing slopes stare directly at the sun, so they warm up early in spring and are warmer both in summer and winter. Therefore, a south-facing slope can be used to hasten fruit ripening on a plant like persimmon, whose late blossoms are rarely threatened by frost but which does need a long season to ripen when grown near its northern limit. Sunlight glances off north slopes, delaying their warm- ing in spring and keeping them cool in summer. Such a microclimate is ideal for an early-blooming fruit tree like apricot or peach, and for plants such as sweet peas that enjoy cool summer weather. If a slope has some eleva- tion, the air is going to cool it by about 1 degree Fahrenheit for every 200 feet of eleva- tion. Avoid planting at the very top, though, because it will be windy. Oddly enough, valleys might also provide a cool- er microclimate. On clear, windless nights, heat that the ground absorbed during the day is re-radiated back to the sky. Cold air, then at ground level, is denser than warmer air, so if there is any slope, the cold air runs downhill as water would. The cold air collects in valleys. You might have noticed a temperature change even from slight differences in elevation as you ride a bicy- cle or drive a car on a clear summer night. It’s a bit chilly this morn- ing (55 degrees Fahrenheit.) I’m going to find a warmer microclimate in which to sit. MICROCLIMATES Lee Reich/AP File Photo This undated photo shows peach trees blooming in New Paltz, N.Y. Peach blossoms are a welcome sight in early spring, so, for fruit, it’s best to delay that show as long as possible by paying attention to microclimate. Something gardeners can do about the weather
Transcript of Farm & Garden · 2 days ago · the season because frozen blossoms do not go on to become fruits....
Farm & GardenPAGE 2D / SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2020 news-journal.com
NEIL SPERRY
SHANIQUA DAVIS
This is the time of year that I get a variety of questions about lawns,
and the clock is running out.The “clock” is the coming
cooler weather and the first frost where your turfgrass will go dormant.
When should a homeowner do their last fertilization? Should you seed/sod a new lawn now? And when do you quit watering your lawn?
You have the rest of September to fertilize with a “winter-izer” fertilizer. It is a very beneficial practice but do not do it too late. Generally, research recommends the absolute latest fall fertilizer application should be made at least six weeks before the location’s historic first-frost date. Our historic first frost is mid-November. So, six weeks before that is October 1.
Your lawn is preparing for winter dormancy and a late feeding could be more disrup-tive than helpful.
Do add lime… if you need it. If you need to add lime to reduce acidic soils, add lime now to your lawns. Lime helps to neutralize the pH in our commonly low pH soils. Lime is not really a fertilizer although it does contain Calcium, a secondary
nutrient for plants. Lime’s purpose is to provide a better environment for the plants to grow. One of its better attributes is that it allows nutrients to be more available.
Keep water-ing until all vis-ible growth has stopped. It is true that your lawn and shrubs and other perennials need moisture year-round, but our climate typically provides enough moisture in our winter not to water. In the coming weeks (and certainly after our first frost) you can completely turn off your sprinkler system.
When to turn the irriga-tion system back on? April is naturally a good time. The grass will likely have started growing at that time and warm, drier weather would be starting.
If you are looking to start a new lawn. Certainly, you can sod or seed now but cold weather is coming. The big-gest concern is if the grasses begins to establish and the winter shuts down active
growth and establishment.
Watch and treat for diseas-es that are at their worst in the fall. Most fungal problems in lawns get their start in the spring.
Do treat for weeds in the fall to help stop the
early spring weeds. You can (and should) treat for weeds each fall. Problematic warm season perennial weeds such as Spurge and Virginia Buttonweed can be killed now before they go dormant. Annual spring weeds such as Lawn Burweed and Henbit can be best controlled with pre-emergent herbicides as they are just trying to germinate.
Products may not be clear-ly marked as “preemergent” but may instead have lan-guage on them such as “weed preventer.” So, being familiar with some of the active ingre-dients can be helpful.
Common active ingredi-ents used for pre-emergence control include prodiamine, dithiopyr, pendimethalin, isoxaben and others.
I have long recommended Atrazine. There are lots of products on the shelves at lots of stores that contain this ac-tive ingredient. It is very safe to use on our most common turf grass, St. Augustine.
Don’t forget about the Gregg County Master Gar-deners annual fall plant sale. Each plant has been expert-ly propagated by Master Gardeners and many will be plants not usually found at the local big box stores. Our Master Gardeners will also be on hand to answer plant care and gardening questions.
The sale will be 9 a.m. to noon Sept. 26 at the Longview Arboretum. Come early for best selection and find trea-sures to add color and beauty to your home and garden.
This fall fundraiser ben-efits GCMGA community outreach and educational programs in Gregg County. For more information, follow us on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/gregg-countymastergardeners/ or call the Gregg County Master Gardeners Association at 903-236-8429.
— Shaniqua Davis is the Extension agent for agriculture and natural resources for Gregg County. Email: [email protected].
Now is time to think about fall lawn care
Dear Neil: What is this plant with the pur-ple flowers? It has invaded my flowerbed. More importantly, how can I get rid of it?
It’s spreading like crazy.Answer: It’s Mexican petunia, Ruellia britto-
niana. You’re right on its invasive nature. How-ever, kept in bounds by use of concrete bound-aries, etc., it’s a handsome perennial. It’s just too bad when it invades. You’ll need to remove it physically (shovel, unfortunately), then install a root barrier around either the bed where you don’t want it or the bed where it’s currently growing. If you don’t have any of it growing
in your yard, it may be coming from seed from a garden nearby, in which case you’ll have to eliminate it as the seedlings sprout.
Dear Neil: I bought some Daisy May daisies last spring and they did wonderful-ly. By the end of the summer some of the leaves were starting to turn brown. What
should I do?Answer: Most Shasta daisies have a few
issues after continuous weeks in the Texas heat. Your plants look relatively fine, and if you were happy with their performance last spring, I’d just keep them tidy this fall and prepare for an even better show come spring 2021 since they’ll be so much better established. Trim out the browning stems and foliage as they appear.
Dear Neil: I am wondering why I had no flowers on my okra this summer. After an onion crop in early spring, I used soil from my composter, cotton bur compost and manure. I fertilized it twice and watered every couple of days. What could have been wrong?
Answer: I’m wondering if the plants might have been starved by all that organic matter. If you have too much fresh organic matter, nitro-gen can be tied up and unavailable for use by the plants. That doesn’t mean that you want to ap-ply excessive amounts of nitrogen. You can use the amount of new growth on the stems as your indicator. I’m also assuming the plants were in full sun. That would be a requirement.
Dear Neil: I bought some St. Augustine sod for shady areas in the hopes I could stop erosion. What isn’t already dead is sending up vertical shoots. It is producing no runners along the ground. I see no visible insects or diseases, and the lawn is irrigated. Where have I messed up?
Answer: Remember that to grow success-fully, St. Augustine requires at least five or six hours of direct sunlight daily. It really sounds to me like your sod didn’t get anywhere near that amount. That’s exactly the behavior St. Au-gustine will show when it’s in too much shade. I’ve seen it happen personally with sod in my own lawn. It’s probably time to shift over to a shade-tolerant groundcover.
Dear Neil: I have two 5-year-old Savannah hollies planted on the west side of our house. They receive shade part of the day, but a lot of afternoon sun. They haven’t grown much at all and now their trunks have started splitting. Why might that be happening?
Answer: Savannah hollies are more par-ticular about soils and exposure than some of our other holly varieties. For example, they are absolutely not suited to alkaline soils, so they are limited to the eastern quarter of Texas. For some reason, nurseries carry them in areas where they’re not suited, and it takes five or 10 years for them to start showing signs of failing. Trunk damage due to bark splitting is one symp-tom, but iron deficiency and lethargic growth are more common. Oakland hollies are also fair-ly upright, and they are far more adaptable. I be-lieve they would be better solutions in the long run. Water them by hand, however, for their first couple of years to get them established.
Dear Neil: What is this, and how do I get rid of it? It started on my Black Diamond crape myrtle, but now it’s spread to all of my other crape myrtles.
Answer: This is crape myrtle bark scale, a relatively new insect in America. It showed up first in the North Dallas area and remained there for several years, but now it has spread across the South. It is extremely unsightly, but it does little permanent harm in most cases. The systemic insecticide Imidacloprid applied as a soil drench in mid-May offers the best prevention. Watch for a black ladybug beetle with two orange spots on its wings to appear. They are predators and are very much benefi-cial. Nymphs of the ladybugs are very unusual looking, so don’t get them confused and start spraying.
— Have a question for Neil? Mail it to him in care of this news-paper or e-mail him at [email protected]. Neil regrets that he cannot reply to questions individually.
Flowerbed is being invaded by Mexican petunia
Special to the News-Journal
Crape myrtle bark scale can cause perma-nent damage to the plant if not taken care of.
BY LEE REICHAssociated Press
The weather has gotten weirder and more un-predictable, but there
is a small way that gardeners can take more control: find-ing and exploiting microcli-mates.
I’ve been looking for them around my upstate New York yard as cooler weather slowly creeps in.
Microclimates are pockets of air and soil that are colder or warmer, or more or less humid, than the general cli-mate due to the influence of slopes, walls and pavement.
Every parcel of land, from a 40-acre farm field to a quar-ter-acre lot, will have some microclimates. Siting plants with this in mind can be the difference between whether or not they thrive or even survive.
Moderating winter’s cold
I’m banking, for instance, on the slightly warmer tem-peratures near the wall of my house to get my stewartia tree, which is borderline cold-hardy around here, through my winters, when temperatures often drop to
minus 20 degrees Fahren-heit.
Proximity to concrete, stone or any other material that retains the sun’s heat also provides a slightly warmer microclimate. I’m expecting spring to arrive early, with a colorful blaze of tulips, in the bed pressed up against the south side of my brick house.
Even sooner, in late win-ter, winter aconites will be spreading their small, yellow blossoms in the slightly raised bed surrounding my terrace. Those aconites warm more quickly thanks to the double benefit of raised beds and a concrete wall surrounding them. (Actually, the benefit is more for me, getting to enjoy their blooms extra early.)
Keeping warmth at bayMicroclimates can also
be useful for keeping plants cooler. By training my hardy kiwi vines right up against the shaded, north sides of their hefty supports, I keep direct winter sunlight from warming their trunks. This avoids the splitting that occurs when their trunks are alternately warmed during winter days, then rapidly cooled as the winter sun
drops below the horizon.Diluted white latex paint
on the trunks of young trees keeps them cold through winter days and nights to likewise prevent damage.
By planting the coveted blue poppy in a bed on the east side of my house, I hoped to give the plant the summer coolness it de-mands. Even that east bed was still too sultry, however; the plants collapsed.
Microclimates are import-ant when growing fruiting plants that blossom early in the season because frozen blossoms do not go on to become fruits. Early-season bloomers need microcli-mates that are slow to warm up. The north side of a house or other building stays cool because it’s shaded from winter sun.
Slopes play a role, tooSouth-facing slopes stare
directly at the sun, so they warm up early in spring and are warmer both in summer and winter. Therefore, a south-facing slope can be used to hasten fruit ripening on a plant like persimmon, whose late blossoms are rarely threatened by frost but which does need a long season to ripen when grown
near its northern limit.Sunlight glances off north
slopes, delaying their warm-ing in spring and keeping them cool in summer. Such a microclimate is ideal for an early-blooming fruit tree like apricot or peach, and for plants such as sweet peas that enjoy cool summer weather.
If a slope has some eleva-tion, the air is going to cool it by about 1 degree Fahrenheit for every 200 feet of eleva-tion. Avoid planting at the very top, though, because it will be windy.
Oddly enough, valleys might also provide a cool-er microclimate. On clear, windless nights, heat that the ground absorbed during the day is re-radiated back to the sky. Cold air, then at ground level, is denser than warmer air, so if there is any slope, the cold air runs downhill as water would. The cold air collects in valleys.
You might have noticed a temperature change even from slight differences in elevation as you ride a bicy-cle or drive a car on a clear summer night.
It’s a bit chilly this morn-ing (55 degrees Fahrenheit.) I’m going to find a warmer microclimate in which to sit.
MicrocliMates
Lee Reich/AP File Photo
This undated photo shows peach trees blooming in New Paltz, N.Y. Peach blossoms are a welcome sight in early spring, so, for fruit, it’s best to delay that show as long as possible by paying attention to microclimate.
Something gardeners can do about the weather
