Gardening This Weekend: July 18, 2024
Put on your sunscreen, get out early, and accomplish these tasks.
PLANT
• Warm-season turfgrasses St. Augustine (sod), zoysia (sod) or bermuda (sod or seed). Water in the morning and evening for the first two weeks to get the grass established and growing.
• Pepper transplants in North Texas.
• Tomato transplants and pumpkin and winter squash seeds in South Texas.
• Crape myrtles while they are still in bloom in local garden centers. That way you can find the exact colors you want. Check the label for each variety’s mature size. That’s critical so you won’t have to top them.
PRUNE
• Trees and shrubs to remove dead branches still persisting from recent years’ freezes.
• Spring and early-summer perennials to remove dried flower stalks and seedheads.
• Pinch out growing tips of coleus, copper plants, mums, impatiens, begonias, Mexican bush sage, and blackberries (new 2024 shoots) to keep plants compact.
• Mow turf at recommended height. Cutting lawn higher does not help it survive hot, dry weather any better. It weakens the grass and allows weeds to get started.
FERTILIZE
• Bermuda turf if it’s been 8 weeks or longer. Apply an all-nitrogen lawn food with 30 to 40 percent of its nitrogen in slow-release form. Wait to feed St. Augustine until early September to reduce chances of gray leaf spot outbreaks.
• Use same food on trees, shrubs, groundcovers and annual and perennial flowerbeds. Water thoroughly after feeding.
• Apply high-nitrogen, water-soluble plant food to patio pots and hanging baskets each time you water them. Their porous potting soils do not retain nutrients and irrigation water very long.
ON THE LOOKOUT
• Leafrollers tying leaves of vinca groundcover, cannas, pyracanthas, and others together. Apply systemic insecticide. It takes systemics several weeks to do their work, so mark the calendar to apply earlier next year.
• Scale insects on euonymus, hollies, camellias, other plants. Use same systemic insecticide.
• Chinch bugs return to the same hottest, sunniest spots each year to attack St. Augustine, causing grass to be dry even after irrigation. Look for small, black insects with white, diamond-shaped patches on their backs at perimeter of dying area. Use labeled turf insecticide.
• Lace bugs turn leaves of azaleas, Boston ivy, pyracanthas, Texas sage, bur oaks, chinquapin oaks, and cotoneasters tan. You’ll see black, waxy dots on the backs of the leaves. Use systemic insecticide.
• Gray leaf spot (oval to diamond-shaped gray lesions on blades, runners) causes St. Augustine blades to wither. Lawn takes on overall yellowed appearance. Avoid high-nitrogen fertilizers until September. Turf fungicide Azoxystrobin for immediate control.
• Nutsedge (“nutgrass”) in turf can be controlled with specialty herbicides Image (“original” formulation) or Sedgehammer. Follow label directions regarding timing and applications.