Gardening This Weekend: November 10, 2016

These are the most time-sensitive things you’ll want to get done before this weekend passes.

PLANT:

• Nursery stock – watch for great end-of-season pricing on landscape plants. Set out now, they’ll be almost a full year ahead on getting established.
• Cold-tolerant annuals, including pansies, violas, pinks, snapdragons, ornamental cabbage and kale, sweet alyssum, wallflower and stocks. Ask your nurseryman’s advice on the best types for your part of Texas.
• Daffodil and grape hyacinth bulbs. Refrigerate tulips and Dutch hyacinths for 45 days at 45 degrees before planting into garden no later than late December. (Time is running out to begin the “pre-chilling.”)

PRUNE:

• Remove roses impacted by rose rosette virus entirely (roots and all). See related story last week.
• Dead branches from trees while you can still identify them from the living limbs.
• Reshape houseplants before bringing them indoors for winter.

FERTILIZE:

• Ryegrass with high-nitrogen plant food to keep it vigorous and deep green over winter.
• Pansies and other cool-season annuals with water-soluble, high-nitrogen food.
• Add one cup of high-nitrogen lawn food per cubic yard of compost. Turn the pile every four to six weeks. Cover it with a black plastic trash bag to keep it warm and humid.

 

ON THE LOOKOUT:

• Check houseplants for mealy bugs, scales and other insect pests before you bring them indoors for winter.
• Apply glyphosate-only spray (original Roundup, Kleen Up, etc.) to kill existing grass and weeds where you intend to prepare a new garden in spring.
• Watch for late-season yellow jackets, stinging caterpillars and even snakes as you are working with fallen tree leaves.