Gardening This Weekend: August 2, 2018
Note to self: Your 51st wedding anniversary comes up this Monday. If you want to ensure another happy year, better get yourself shopping! I’ll bet she’d love a plant stand!
PLANT
• New lawngrass. St. Augustine or zoysia from plugs or sod. Bermuda from sod or seed. Seeding is risky at these really high temperatures as you’ll have to water morning and evening for 5-6 minutes per area. Miss one watering and you could lose all the grass.
• Beans, squash, cucumbers. See related story last week.
• Dig and divide spider lilies, oxblood lilies, fall crocus and other fall bulbs immediately – before they start growing.
PRUNE
• Keep mowing lawn at recommended height. Allowing grass to grow taller does not improve its durability to heat. It actually weakens it and allows weeds to move in.
• Errant spring and summer growth from shrubs and vines to tidy up the look of your landscape.
• Spent flower stalks and seed heads in annual and perennial gardens.
FERTILIZE
• Iron-deficient plants with a granular iron product. Hopefully it will also contain sulfur to help acidify the soil at least long enough to allow the iron to remain soluble.
• New flower and vegetable plantings for fall garden with high-nitrogen, water-soluble plant food for quickest start.
• High-phosphate root-stimulator monthly for trees and shrubs that were transplanted last winter and early spring.
ON THE LOOKOUT
• Chinch bugs remain extremely threatening to St. Augustine turf everywhere that it’s grown. Click to see what I wrote recently.
• Leafrollers are attacking vinca groundcovers, sweetgums, redbuds, cannas and several other plant species. Apply a systemic insecticide to stop further outbreaks, but it will take regrowth to conceal the current ugliness. You can trim vinca groundcover beds to get rid of the browned stubble. Fertilize and water to encourage regrowth.
• Be extremely observant of new tree and shrub plantings to be sure you don’t forget to water them by hand every couple of days the rest of this year. Sprinkler irrigation alone will not be adequate.
• If you have an automatic sprinkling system, be sure all stations are functioning properly. Walk through your entire landscape with a keen eye toward problems.
Follow-up note to self: Forget that “plant stand” idea. You tried that once, and you forgot that your wife isn’t a gardener. She saw through your ruse – that you really bought it for yourself.