Gardening This Weekend: June 22, 2017

One more full week of June ahead, and here are the things you’ll want to get done.

PLANT

• Color that can handle the heat from the moment you get it home from the nursery. That list includes trailing lantanas, angelonias, moss rose, hybrid purslane, Cora periwinkles and many others.
• New lawngrasses, but be prepared to water the new turf morning and evening for about 5 minutes each time. That goes on for a week or 10 days, then cut it back gradually.
• Crape myrtles, while plants are in full bloom in your favorite nursery. Choose varieties whose sizes match up with what you have available for them so you won’t feel compelled to prune them to fit later on. And choose the precise color that pleases you most.
• Fall tomatoes (see related story this issue) and pumpkins for Halloween.

PRUNE

• Annuals such as copper plants, coleus and begonias that have become too leggy by pinching them back.
• Daylilies and other spring- and summer-blooming perennials can be trimmed as soon as they finish flowering to remove old floral stalks, seedheads.
• Erratic twigs from shrubs.

FERTILIZE

• Bermuda with high-nitrogen fertilizer that has half or more of that nitrogen in slow-release form, but avoid applications of nitrogen to St. Augustine until September to lessen chance of gray leaf spot outbreaks.
• Trees, shrubs, groundcovers and annuals with high-nitrogen or all-nitrogen fertilizer top promote sustained growth and vigor through rest of growing season. It’s best to do it now rather than in several weeks once it’s been really hot and possibly dry for a prolonged period.
• Iron-deficient plants (yellowed leaves with dark green veins, most prominent on newest growth first) can be treated with iron additive with sulfur soil acidifier to help reduce alkalinity of soil.

ON THE LOOKOUT

• Gray leaf spot causing yellowed “washes” across St. Augustine turf. Sun or shade. Exacerbated by applications of nitrogen in hot weather, so avoid nitrogen and apply labeled fungicide.
• Chinch bugs causing dried looking areas in hottest, sunniest parts of your St. Augustine lawn. You will be able to see the small, black insects with irregular white diamonds on their wings if you part the grass with your fingers. Apply labeled insecticide. They can quickly kill affected areas.
• Lacebugs turn blades of American elm, sycamore, bur oak, azalea, pyracantha, boxwood, Boston ivy and other plants mottled tan. You will see black peppery specks (excrement) on backs of leaves. Apply general-purpose insecticide to stop further damage.