Gardening This Weekend: November 15, 2018

When the first freeze hits your gardens you shift gears dramatically. Even if you’re in a part of South Texas that’s still awaiting that experience, there are things you need to do now. Here is my list.

PLANT
• There’s still time to plant winter color, including pansies, pinks, ornamental cabbage and kale, among many others.
• Daffodils, narcissus, jonquils, grape hyacinths and summer snowflakes. Keep tulips and Dutch hyacinths in refrigerator until mid-December to give them their necessary pre-chilling.
• Once trees and shrubs have been subjected to at least one hard freeze (into the 20s), you can dig and transplant them from one location to another.

PRUNE
• All frozen stubble from vegetable and annual garden plots, perennial gardens.
• Mistletoe from tree limbs by clipping off small twigs that are supporting it. If it’s on larger branches, better call in the help of a certified arborist.
• Mow lawn to remove fallen tree leaves. Don’t allow them to collect on top of the grass where they can lead to fungal diseases.

FERTILIZE
• Winter annuals with water-soluble, high-nitrogen plant food each time that you water them.
• Cool-season grasses (fescue and ryegrass) with high-nitrogen lawn food with a significant percentage of its nitrogen in slow-release form. These grasses grow in cool weather, so they can utilize the nutrients now.

 

ON THE LOOKOUT
• Brown patch causes circles of browned grass in St. Augustine lawns. Blades will pull loose easily from the runners. South Texas gardeners who are still seeing this will probably want to treat with a labeled turf fungicide.
• Broadleafed weeds are growing vigorously due to the fall rains. Treat with a broadleafed herbicide (containing 2,4-D) now, before weather turns too cold to do so. Once that happens your next chance won’t come until February or early March.