Gardening This Weekend: September 19, 2024

Here are the things I consider most critical for the last 10 days of September. See what you think of my list.

PLANT
• This is singly the best time of the entire calendar year to plant new nursery stock. Nurseries are beginning to reduce their inventories for winter, and the plants are full and vigorous. Set out now they will have 7 or 8 months of lead time to develop good roots before next summer’s heat.
• Dig and divide spring-flowering perennials such as iris, daylilies, oxalis, pinks, thrift and Louisiana phlox, Shasta daisies, coneflowers and others.
• Wildflower seeds immediately. They must germinate and grow in fall’s warm spells to be established by spring. Plant where grass will not compete. Sow acid-scarified bluebonnet seeds for most dependable germination.
• Ryegrass as a temporary cover for bare soil, also if you want green grass over the winter in warm-season lawns.
• Daffodils and grape hyacinth bulbs. These do not require pre-chilling. Choose daffodil varieties that have the best odds of coming back and blooming again year after year. Carlton and Ice Follies are two exceptional types. Avoid the disappointment of King Alfred, Unsurpassable, Mount Hood and other big, late-flowering hybrids. They bloom well the first year, but seldom in successive years.
• Tulips and Dutch hyacinths will begin to arrive in nurseries in the next several weeks. These bulbs don’t get enough cold winter conditions in Texas soils, so you must “pre-chill” them for a minimum of 45 days in the refrigerator at 45 degrees. Do not plant them until mid-December. Buy only top-quality bulbs from reputable sources.

PRUNE
• Keep mowing your lawn to keep leaves picked up and to slow development of weeds.
• Dead and damaged branches from shade trees while you can easily distinguish them from healthy ones. Once they’re all bare, you can’t tell them apart.
• Dead and drying stubble from perennial gardens to keep things tidy.

FERTILIZE
• Turf. High-nitrogen fertilizer for sandy soils. All-nitrogen fertilizer for clays. 30 to 40 percent of the nitrogen should be in slow-release form.
• Same fertilizer you apply to lawn will also benefit your trees, shrubs and groundcover beds as they store nutrients for best early spring growth.

Note: Avoid application of high-nitrogen food around wisteria plants that have been reluctant to bloom in past springs. “Root pruning” these plants with a sharpshooter spade 15-18 inches out from their trunks might shock them into setting flower buds. Send spade 6-8 inches into the soil. Do not attempt to lift the plants.

ON THE LOOKOUT
• Brown patch (also called “large patch”) in St. Augustine turf. Watch for yellowed patches 18 to 24 inches across. Within just a few days the patches will turn brown and blades will pull loose from runners very easily. Control with labeled fungicide.
• Watch patio pots, hanging baskets for insects, diseases. Deal with them outdoors, so you won’t be bringing them inside over the winter.
• There is little reason to spray for insects and diseases on deciduous trees and shrubs. Those leaves will be falling within 4 to 6 weeks anyway. Exceptions could be evergreen plants such as euonymus or hollies with scale insects.