Gardening This Weekend: April 2, 2020
Hopefully you’ve gotten caught up on some of your gardening on the good days this week, because it looks like much of Texas might have several more rainy days ahead. See how many of these things you can check off the list.
PLANT
• Warm-season grasses from sod. In South Texas plant bermudagrass from seed. Wait until May in North Texas.
• Warm-season annuals including marigolds, zinnias, cockscomb, cosmos, pentas, angelonias, coleus, wax begonias and purple fountaingrass among others.
• South Texas gardeners plant lantanas, periwinkles, moss rose, hybrid purslane, firebush, Gold Star Esperanza and copper plants. Wait a couple more weeks to plant those in North Texas.
• Warm-season vegetables. Plant tomatoes, peppers, beans, squash, cucumbers, corn right away. Stay with small- and mid-sized tomatoes for best production. Large types like Beefsteak and Big Boy don’t set fruit above 90F.
PRUNE
• Azaleas, wisteria, Carolina jessamine, Lady Banksia roses, crossvine, forsythia, quince, viburnums and other spring-blooming shrubs and vines, as they finish blooming, to reshape. Avoid formal shearing.
• Houseplants to reshape them as you bring them outside to spend summer in rehab on the patio.
FERTILIZE
• Water-soluble, high-nitrogen plant food to patio pots, hanging baskets, new annual flower and vegetable transplants to get them off to a quick start.
• Lawn with high-nitrogen or all-nitrogen fertilizer with upwards of half of that nitrogen in slow-release form.
• Same lawn fertilizer to all trees and shrub and groundcover plantings.
ON THE LOOKOUT
• Clover, dandelions, dollarweed, dichondra, poison ivy and other non-grassy weeds with a broadleafed weedkiller spray containing 2,4-D. Read and follow label directions for best results.
• Cabbage loopers on leaves of cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and other cole crops. Apply B.t. biological worm spray.
• Snails, slugs and pillbugs devouring tender new growth. Apply Sevin dust or bait to plants, soil. These feed primarily at night. See related story in last week’s e-gardens.