Gardening This Weekend: May 29, 2025
Here’s my list of the most time-sensitive gardening things we should accomplish in the next few days.
PLANT
• New lawngrass from sod, seed or plugs. It’s easier to get new grass started now than it will be when it turns beastly hot in mid-summer. (Granted, it’s already there in much of the state.)
• Hot-weather annuals such as trailing lantana, pentas, angelonia, purslane, moss rose, fanflower, firebush and, from foliage: purple fountaingrass and copper plants.
• Tropicals to enhance pool and patio settings, including bananas, hibiscus, elephant ears (shade), crotons, bougainvillea, and mandevilla among others.
• Crape myrtles as they come into bloom in Texas nurseries. Keep track of the variety names that you buy. Check each plant’s expected mature height so you won’t have to “top” it to keep it in bounds.
PRUNE
• Branches that have been damaged by spring storms or winter cold. Make smooth cuts to remove jagged stubs left behind when limbs were snapped off in high winds. Do not climb a ladder carrying a chain saw. Leave that kind of work to the pros.
• Low-hanging branches that are casting excessive shade onto lawn. (Wait until mid-July to prune oaks to lessen chance of oak wilt invasion.)
• Erratic new shoots on shrubs, groundcovers, but maintain natural growth forms. Avoid rounded and square shearing whenever possible.
FERTILIZE
• Spring-flowering shrubs and vines to encourage new growth this summer. They will produce flower buds for next year’s bloom on that new growth.
• Turfgrass with second feeding of high-nitrogen or all-nitrogen fertilizer with 30 to 40 percent of that nitrogen in slow-release form. This will be the final feeding you will give St. Augustine until early September to lessen chance of gray leaf spot infection.
• Iron and sulfur soil acidifier to correct chlorosis (yellowed leaves, dark green veins, most prominent on newest growth first).
• Hanging baskets and container plants with high-nitrogen, water-soluble plant food each time that you water.
ON THE LOOKOUT
• Early blight causing lower leaves of tomatoes to turn yellow, then quickly dried and brown. Apply labeled fungicide.
• Second application of pre-emergent to prevent germination of crabgrass, grassburs. Apply Dimension, Halts or Balan granules followed by a good watering. If you did not make first application in March, this application will be useless. While you’re buying this round of pre-emergent herbicide, you might want to stock up for your fall application (August 25-September 5). Pre-emergents are harder to find then. Store them dry in the garage and they will be fine.
• Chiggers and mosquitoes. It’s probably easier to treat yourself than to treat all your world. Apply DEET insect repellent to keep them away. Spray all exposed flesh. For chiggers, spray feet, ankles and calves, then spray outside of shoes, clothes as well. Eliminate all standing water to get rid of mosquito breeding sites.
• Fire ants become noticeable when mounds are built above ground to escape waterlogged soils. Scatter area-wide baits to provide long-term control, and use individual mound treatments to stop them in high-traffic areas.
• Webworms in pecans, other trees. Prune small webs out of canopy before they overtake branches. Spraying is not efficient and requires power equipment.
• Bagworms in junipers, arborvitae, cypresses, and other cone-bearing plants. Apply B.t. biological worm control or almost any other organic or inorganic insecticide, but apply at first signs of outbreak. Don’t wait until they have stripped the limbs bare of all needles.