Gardening This Weekend: April 30, 2026

May is a busy month for us all. Let’s concentrate on the most important gardening tasks first.

PLANT
• New trees and shrubs. Nurseries are still well stocked, but supplies will be selling down over the next several weeks. Transport them home carefully. Plant them the same day and water them regularly and by hand for their first summer.
• Summer annuals – those plants that stand up to the heat. Best types include trailing lantanas, fanflowers, pentas, angelonias, firebush, moss rose, hybrid purslane, copper plants, Gold Star Esperanza, and purple fountaingrass for sun and wax begonias, crotons, and coleus for shade.
• Nurseries are still stocked with perennials, but supplies will dwindle quickly as May rolls on. Have a plan for your plantings. Know mature sizes, blooming dates, colors, and growth forms. Plan so there will always be things in bloom. Include dwarf evergreen shrubs for structure during the off seasons.
• New turf from sod, plugs, or seed now that soils have warmed. If you are replanting in areas where grass has thinned and died due to shade, turn to St. Augustine since it’s our most shade-tolerant type. If it fails, it’s time to switch to shade-tolerant groundcovers.

PRUNE
• Spring-flowering perennials to remove spent flowers and seedheads but leave foliage in place until it turns brown and dies.
• Erratic and unwanted spring growth from shrubs like abelias and elaeagnus. Reshape spring-flowering shrubs and vines now that they have finished blooming. This is the proper time to do so.
• Crape myrtles that lost trunks due to recent winter cold spells. You can even cut entire crape myrtles completely to the ground and retrain the new shoots that sprout up vigorously from their roots. That’s a good way to salvage crape myrtles that have been disfigured by repeated “topping.”

FERTILIZE
• Trees, shrubs, groundcovers, and turfgrass with high-nitrogen, or in clay soils, all-nitrogen lawn food with 30 to 40 percent of that N in coated or encapsulated, slow-release form.
• Flowers and vegetables may need the same plant food if soil tests show that your soil has high levels of the middle number (phosphorus) already. That’s especially common in clay soils.
• Water-soluble, high-nitrogen food for patio pots and hanging baskets every second or third time that you water them. Supplement it with a coated, timed-release plant food for sustained feeding.

ON THE LOOKOUT
• Snails, slugs, and pillbugs chew tender plant parts. Remove mulch around affected plants to eliminate hiding places. Dust the plants and ground with Sevin or apply bait products to eliminate them.
• Chiggers are, or soon will be, showing up in Texas lawns and wild spaces now that it’s warm. They are microscopic and they cause intense itching from their bites. Do not go onto or into bermudagrass or weeds without protecting yourself with DEET spray onto your legs, shoes, socks, and cuffs. If you’re reaching to pull weeds (or harvest dewberries), spray your arms as well. My experience has been that they are active into mid-July or longer, and I find it easier to protect myself and my family with the repellent than it is to try to spray the entire environment.
• Mosquitoes are showing up in large numbers in areas where rains have finally arrived. Remove all standing water, no matter how small the vessel. Apply DEET repellent anytime you’re outdoors to avoid the serious diseases mosquitoes can carry.
• Poison ivy is growing actively. Learn to recognize it and teach young children what it looks like. The oil that causes the irritation is present in all parts of the plant (leaves, stems, roots). It can even rub off onto clothing, so give it ultimate respect. Take a hot shower, scrubbing with soap as soon as you come indoors.
• Leyland cypress, Italian cypress, and more recently, Arizona cypress, have all been attacked and ruined by Seiridium canker. Large portions of the plants turn brown and leak sap down their main trunks. There is no prevention or cure, and pruning out the dead wood disfigures the plants. Your only solution is to plant other species.
• Similarly, Blue Point, Spartan, and other upright junipers are attacked by Phomopsis and Kabatina blights. Large sections of the symmetrical plants are killed. Again, there is no control or prevention. Avoid planting these types.