Gardening This Weekend: September 8, 2022
Here are your gardening goals for the next three or four days. I hope you find the list helpful.
PLANT
• Nursery stock as fresh trees and shrubs arrive from growers. Fall is the best time for landscaping. It gives new plants the longest possible time to become established before hot weather returns. The only ones you would want to exclude would be plants known to be risky in winters in your area. Wait until spring to plant them.
• Fall-flowering perennials, including mums, Mexican mint marigolds, Mexican bush salvias, Gregg’s mist flower and others. Nurseries have them in quart and gallon containers.
• Bluebonnets (acid-scarified seeds) and other spring-flowering wildflower seeds into gently prepared garden soil. Do not plant where the wildflowers will have to compete with turfgrass.
• If you need to plant new lawngrass, stick with sod and not seed (too late in season). Bermudagrass is most reliable from late-season plantings. St. Augustine is riskiest this late, especially in northern parts of its region.
PRUNE
• Weed grasses by mowing frequently to keep seedheads from forming.
• Shade trees, crape myrtles and other shrubs to remove all winter-killed branches. If you have dead branches in oak trees due to the cold of February 2021 you really need to have them removed before any more time passes. They will fall before long, and they are dense and heavy enough to put you, your family and others, as well as your house and car, at great risk.
• Perennial gardens to remove old leaves and dead stems and flower stalks.
FERTILIZE
• Turf with all-nitrogen food with significant percentage of that nitrogen in slow-release (encapsulated or coated) form. Turf experts tell us this fall feeding is critical.
• Water-soluble, high-nitrogen food to annual flowers and patio containers for a burst of new growth in fall’s better weather.
ON THE LOOKOUT
• Be alert to stinging caterpillars such as puss caterpillars, Hagg moth and Io moth larvae and others as you work in your shrubs and taller flowers. This is the time of year they are most active. Watch for yellowjackets in hidden spots of eaves and shrubs, also snakes in piles of leaves.
• If you have patio pots you plan to bring indoors for winter, start grooming them now so they can regrow and fill in. Check them for insects and apply insecticides as needed.