Gardening This Weekend: April 23, 2026
It’s a wonderful time to swing by your favorite nursery to see what the trucks have dropped off this week. Here’s a list of other things you might want to get done.
PLANT
• New turf from sod or plugs. Soils are warm enough now that the grass will take off, but the weather is still cool enough that you’ll be able to keep up with your watering responsibilities as the new grass gets started. Wait until May to seed bermudagrass unless you’re in the southern third of the state where soils have already warmed sufficiently to get the grass growing.
• Trees, shrubs and other landscaping plants are in good supplies in Texas nurseries. This is a fine time to plant so you can take advantage of the rest of their spring growth.
• Summer annual color to replace pansies and other spent annuals of winter. You have dozens of fine choices. Have fun making your selections. Try a few new things as well.
PRUNE
• Spring-flowering shrubs and vines, as needed to reduce size, now that they have finished blooming.
• Erratic new spring growth from shrubs, vines and groundcovers to guide them into attractive, natural forms.
• Browned flowerheads from daffodils, Byzantine glads, and other perennials, but leave foliage in place to yellow and brown if you expect them to rebloom next year.
FERTILIZE
• Almost all plants, including turf, landscape plants, flowers and vegetables with all-nitrogen or high-nitrogen plant food. (See related story this issue.)
• Patio pots and hanging baskets with high-nitrogen, water-soluble fertilizer every week or two to keep them growing actively. Supplement it with slow-acting, timed-release fertilizer pellets as well.
ON THE LOOKOUT
• Cabbage loopers chewing holes in leaves of cabbage, broccoli, and other Cole crops. Use Bacillus thuringiensis biological worm control to stop them.
• Walnut caterpillars are feeding on foliage of pecans and other shade trees. Many will drop to the ground and be evident there. Their damage is short-term. They are not web-builders, so no control is required.
• Snails, slugs, and pillbugs are feeding on tender new growth of annual flowers and vegetables. Use Sevin dust or baits applied to the leaves, around the stems, and across the soil where they crawl. One or two treatments is usually all that is needed.
• Rose rosette virus has run rampant across much of Texas for the past 15 years. It causes distorted growth and malformed blooms and eventual death of all infected plants. Please see information I leave archived on my website.
• Seiridium canker and Phomopsis twig blight continue to cause large sections of Italian cypress, Leyland cypress, Arizona cypress, Blue Point junipers, and other conifers to die. Plant pathologists do not offer much hope other than pruning out infected branches and doing whatever we can to improve drainage around the plants. There is no fungicide that will stop their spread.