Gardening This Weekend: March 13, 2025
We’re seeing great weather most days ahead. Here are the things you’ll want to get done.
PLANT
• Warm-season annual color can be planted now in the southern half of the state. Up around the I-20 corridor and in the Texas Hill Country you can plant with some risk. Wait in the South Plains, Red River Valley, and Texas Panhandle unless you’re planting in a micro-climate, an urban heat pocket, for example.
• The same with warm-season vegetables tomatoes, peppers, beans, cucumbers, melons, corn, and squash. It’s time in the southern half of the state, probably ok in Central Texas, but still a bit risky near or north of I-20. You just never know here in Texas. I’d feel safer watching you wait one more week unless you’re ready to cover with frost cloth if a late cold spell plows through.
• New lawns from sod, although it’s better to wait another week or two unless you’re in South Texas. Wait until late April or May to sow bermuda seed. Soils are simply too cold still.
• Container-grown nursery stock. Nurseries are getting their best selections now. Shop late in the week as they have stocked up for the weekend. (That’s why we distribute e-gardens on Thursday evenings.)
PRUNE
• Spring-flowering shrubs and vines immediately after they finish their spring blooms. Trim as needed to correct rogue shoots. Avoid shearing into formal shapes.
• Mow turf frequently to maintain proper height and discourage weeds.
• Misshapen greenhouse plants and houseplants should be pruned and reshaped before you repot them and bring them out for a summer beneath your shade trees and on the patio.
FERTILIZE
• Liquid or water-soluble plant food weekly for new annual flowers and vegetables to help them become established.
• High nitrogen, water-soluble plant food for patio pots and hanging baskets with each watering. Supplement with timed-release fertilizer.
• All-nitrogen fertilizer (or in sandy soils, high-nitrogen food) with 30 to 40 percent of the nitrogen in slow-release form. Apply to virtually all the plants that you’re growing: turf, flowers, vegetables, fruit and landscapes. One fertilizer may be sufficient for all your feedings.
• Remove winter- and wind-damaged branches from trees and shrubs. Make all cuts virtually flush with remaining limbs. Leave a portion of branch collar in place for fastest healing. Seal cut surfaces of oaks with pruning paint.
ON THE LOOKOUT
• In the I-20 corridor: last call for application of pre-emergent granules Dimension, Balan, or Halts to prevent germination of crabgrass and grassburs (among other warm-season annual grassy weeds). Soils are warming enough that these weeds will soon begin to germinate. Farther north in South Plains and Panhandle, also along the Red River, make your application within the next 10 days. (It’s already too late in Central and South Texas. These weeds are already growing.) Wherever you are, make a second application 90 days after the first. These materials are effective for 100 days and you’ll need a “booster shot” application to stop late weed seed germination.
• Broadleafed weeds such as chickweed, dandelions, clover, dichondra, thistles and other rank growers can be controlled with application of a broadleafed weedkiller (containing 2,4-D). Read and follow label directions carefully.
• Grassy weeds such as the clumps of rescuegrass (often mistaken for summertime weed crabgrass) and the fine-textured annual bluegrass (Poa annua) can only be prevented. There is no control for them now that they are present. Apply pre-emergent first week of September. I’ll have details here – be watching.
• Aphids may be prolific on tender new growth of many plants. They will always have pear-shaped bodies with “twin exhaust pipes.” You may be able to wash them off your plants with a hard stream of water. General-purpose insecticides, either organic or inorganic, will generally control them.
• Snails, slugs, and pillbugs: apply Sevin dust or bait or place a shallow pan of beer or other fermenting material. The aroma will entice the pests into the pan where they will drown.