Q&A – Ask Neil: June 18, 2026
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QUESTION 1
HOW SHOULD I SHAPE AND TRIM A JAPANESE MAPLE?
Question: Can you offer advice on when and how to shape and trim a Japanese maple? Kathy M., Red Oak, Ellis County.
Answer: I have a book from Timber Press published 20 or more years ago on Japanese maples. It lists more than 300 varieties with mature sizes ranging from 3 to 33 ft. tall and wide. All those figures are from my memory, but suffice to say that it’s difficult to answer your question without seeing the plant and knowing the variety.
Most types sold in Texas are capable of growing into small trees in the 10- to 18-ft. range. Unless you’re in the more humid climate of the Piney Woods of East Texas where acidic soils are also more favorable, they will need virtually total shade.
That said, prune off the bottom-most branches only to encourage the look of a small tree. Remember that trees do not produce new branches down low unless some kind of problem develops. Do not trim them off unless you’re sure you will never want branches down there again.
Without more information or a photo, that’s as far as I can go. If you have the variety name you can Google for photos of mature specimens of that variety and get a pretty good idea of how it should look.
QUESTION 2
HOW DO I KNOW WHEN TO REMOVE STAKES FROM MY MONTEREY OAK?
Question: I have a Monterey oak planted in 2019. As you can see from the earlier photo it was about 10 ft. tall at the time. It has been staked ever since, and it’s now 25 ft. tall. What criteria do you use to determine when it’s time to take the stakes down? Dennis B., San Antonio.
Answer: You’ve done a wonderful job of laying out your landscape and staying with it for those years. It’s so good that the Monterey oak made it through February 2021’s extreme cold. So many of them did not in your area.
Staking is done to keep a tree from tipping in heavy winds – before the roots grow out into the adjacent soil well enough to anchor the tree in place. If a tree is thriving, that’s usually 2 years for a 10- or 20-gal. tree, and a year or two longer for larger container-grown trees. For very large trees planted with heavy equipment it would be more on a tree-by-tree basis.
In your tree, I would have guessed the stakes and supports could have come down by 2021 or 2022. But who am I to argue with a guy who turns out a product like this!
QUESTION 3
WHAT ARE THESE SPOTS ON MY CAROLINA JESSAMINE?
Question: What are these round, red spots on my Carolina jessamine? Can it be related to iron deficiency? If I apply iron for the vine, how do I know where its drip line is? Should it be applied directly to the root zone? Eric Gasanov, Frisco.
Images clickable for larger views.
Answer: Good observations. I have grown Carolina jessamine (sometimes erroneously called “jasmine,” but not a true jasmine) for 55 years, always within 20 miles of where you are growing it and in the same kind of Blackland soils.
It’s always been my observation, as much as I love and recommend this vine from the Southern pine forests, that after it has grown in our alkaline black clay soils for 5 or 6 years or longer, that it begins to weaken due to iron deficiency. I initially thought this was some type of fungal leaf spot, but I have never found any reference to such a disease in any university website, and applications of fungicides never helped.
What did help, however, was repeated applications of iron and sulfur products to the soil beneath the plants and, concurrently, feeding with a high-quality, all-nitrogen lawn food to stimulate new growth that would take in the iron. In severe cases of the spotting and leaf drop I’ve even cut the jessamine vines back by half or more before I did the feeding and that seemed to speed things along.
QUESTION 4
HOW CAN I GET MY LOROPETALUM TO THICKEN UP?
Question: My Loropetalum suffered damage in last winter’s freeze. It’s putting out some growth at the top, but much of it is bare. Is there something I can do to help it, or should I give up and get a new plant? Side question: Can I use a broadleafed weedkiller (2,4-D) beneath and around it? David T., Plano.
Answer: I would address this in four steps.
(1) Prune and reshape the plant with hand shears one branch at a time. Your goal will be to remove half the height and width of the plant while maintaining its natural growth form. You cannot do that with power shears.
(2) I can’t tell which specific weeds are invading, but they look like relatively weak growers. I would use a well-sharpened hoe to cultivate them out. The herbicide would be a big risk but hoeing them out should be quite easy if you do it when the soil is fairly dry.
(3) Apply an all-nitrogen, lawn-type fertilizer to promote new growth and water it in deeply.
(4) Cover the bare ground with bark mulch to prevent seeds from germinating the next time.
QUESTION 5
WHY DO MY CRAPE MYRTLES REFUSE TO BLOOM WHEN MY NEIGHBOR’S BLOOM PROLIFICALLY?
Question: I bought my home seven years ago. Every year my crape myrtles refuse to bloom while my next door neighbor’s bloom prolifically. One gets morning sun, three get afternoon sun and are shaded partially by bur oaks. They seem healthy otherwise. Sharon L., Fort Worth.
Answer: I was sure this had been asked in a recent week here in e-gardens, but it must have been in my Q&A newspaper column.
Crape myrtles’ being slow or reluctant to bloom can be due to several different reasons.
• Different varieties. Some types like Muskogee bloom 6 to 8 weeks earlier than other varieties like Country Red. It’s simply a genetic thing.
• Pruning habits. People who “top” their crape myrtles delay their first blooms by as much as two months. A type that normally blooms in June may not produce flowers until mid-August. And that round of blooms may be all it will produce, whereas the untopped plant may bloom in 3 or 4 separate bursts summer and into early fall. Topping is just bad business all around.
• Plants that have been damaged by extreme cold may not bloom well. That’s especially a problem with Tuscarora, Natchez, and a couple of other types.
• But, in your case, it sounds like insufficient sunlight could be involved. Crape myrtles need full sunlight all day to bloom to their maximum. Anything less will diminish those blooms. You mentioned shade a couple of times in your question.
As you envy your neighbor’s plants, see if any of these might point to differences.
QUESTION 6
WHY IS MY ST. AUGUSTINE LIME GREEN?
Question: I applied 30-0-9 to my St. Augustine several weeks back. It has turned lime green. What is going wrong with the grass? Bob, Plano.
Note: Bob called my KLIF radio program last Saturday. I asked him for photos so I could give the most accurate answer possible. I told him at recent temperatures I worried most about the fungus gray leaf spot, but I would need a photo to confirm it. He sent excellent photos. Here is my reply.
Answer: In Photo 1 I see the lime-green color very obviously. One might think this was merely iron deficiency, but my experience tells me when I see large areas of St. Augustine showing this yellowing that I need to look closely this time of year (summer weather) for gray leaf spot. It’s a disease that shows up in the heat, most notably after we apply nitrogen.
The analysis you chose should have been fine, at least if it contained 30 to 40 percent slow-release nitrogen.
However, Photos 2 and 3 show distinctive diamond-shaped gray/brown lesions along the midribs and on the blades. We have circled a few of the most obvious. Once you see them you’ll always remember what to look for. This is classic gray leaf spot.
Photo 4 shows the impact of this fungus on the lawn overall. Grass toward the left has a healthy green color. Grass on the right is impacted. Grass down the center has died out. You need to treat as soon as possible (see next paragraph.) I do believe you can get things turned around. This fungus has probably been in the turf for some time.
Do not apply any more nitrogen until early September. It would make the problem worse in a hurry. Use Azoxystrobin fungicide sold as Halts Disease-EX to stop the current outbreak. Plant pathologists at major southern universities have recommended it for all patch type turf diseases. Repeat according to label directions until the problem resolves.
Note: Have your lawn mower blade sharpened. Look at how jagged the cut grass blades are. That’s damaging to the turf.