Gardening This Weekend: August 29, 2024
Here’s your list of things you need to accomplish the last few days of August into the first week of September.
PLANT
• Sod. Bermuda and zoysia can still be planted across Texas. It’s late to plant St. Augustine in the northern half of the state, but still fine in South Texas.
• Wildflower seeds for spring blooms should be planted in September. They germinate as temperatures drop and early fall rains help break their seed coats. Sow into lightly tilled soil away from turf. Water after planting and weekly until they have germinated and are growing. Acid-scarified bluebonnet seeds give much better results.
• Nursery stock planted now will be well-rooted by spring. Look for sales over the next couple of months.
• Spring-flowering bulbs will begin to arrive in local independent retail garden centers. Buy only top-quality bulbs for your best chance at success.
PRUNE
• Spent flower and seed stalks in perennial garden to tiny things up.
• Cold- and drought-damaged branches from trees and shrubs.
• Erratic branches from shrubs and groundcover beds to maintain orderly look to landscape. However, whenever possible avoid formal shearing that takes extra time and energy.
• Pinch flower buds out of new shoots of coleus and basil plants to keep them growing vegetatively. Flowers stop new leaf production.
FERTILIZE
• Lawngrasses with all-nitrogen or high-nitrogen food to promote one more round of vigorous growth while soils are still warm. Water deeply after feeding. Use a high-quality food with 30 to 40 percent of that nitrogen in slow release coated or encapsulated form.
• Iron and sulfur soil-acidifier to chlorotic plants. Iron deficiency shows up as yellowed leaves with dark green veins and it is most prominent on newest growth (ends of branches) first. Sulfur helps keep the iron in a water-soluble form. Keep iron off masonry surfaces that could be stained.
• Patio pots and hanging baskets with high-nitrogen, water-soluble food to keep them vigorous as weather conditions improve.
ON THE LOOKOUT
• Pre-emergent weedkiller granules must be applied within first two weeks of September to prevent germination of annual bluegrass, rescuegrass, ryegrass, and other winter weeds. We’ve been waiting for 60F night temperatures and rain on the near horizon, and both now appear possible. I’ll have all the details here next week.
• Chinch bugs may still be active in St. Augustine. Their damage will always be in hottest, sunniest parts of the yard. Grass will appear dry, but it won’t respond to irrigation. Look for BB-sized black insects with irregular white diamonds on their wings. Treat with labeled insecticide at first signs of invasion. They will return to same parts of yard mid- or late summer each year.
• Crape myrtle bark scale and crape myrtle aphids will both result in sticky honeydew residue on leaf and twig surfaces. Apply Imidacloprid as soil drench in mid-May for best results, or spray as they appear during the summer. Left unchecked the residue will give black sooty mold fungus a surface on which to grow. This is all comparatively harmless but very annoying.
• Watch for stinging caterpillars as you do fall tidy-up tasks in the landscape, garden. Don’t touch “wooly caterpillars” as a general practice.