Gardening This Weekend: July 16, 2026

If you needed rain, hopefully you got some earlier this week. (But hopefully in tolerable amounts.) And even if you did, don’t roll up the hoses just yet. Keep watering those new trees and shrubs by hand every couple of days. There’s a lot of hot weather ahead.

PLANT
• New turf from sod, plugs, or (bermuda only) seed. Check sod carefully to be sure it’s crisp and green, then plant it immediately onto freshly tilled and raked soil. Water it within 45 minutes of planting and twice daily for 5-10 minutes for the first week to keep its roots from drying out. Gradually cut back to daily and then every two days as you apply more water with each irrigation. After 2-3 weeks water it on a normal twice-weekly schedule.
• Annual flowers and foliage. Let your Texas Certified Nursery Professional suggest the best types for your needs. Again, frequent watering will be your key to success.
• Peppers, both ornamental and edible, now for the best fruit production this fall.
• Crape myrtles while in bloom to ensure colors. Choose types whose mature heights and widths fit the spaces you have available for them.

PRUNE
• Tidy up perennial and annual color beds to remove spent flower stalks and browned foliage. Water deeply to encourage regrowth for fall.
• Oak trees as needed. The oak wilt fungus is not active in the hottest summer weather, so this is an acceptable time to trim them. Seal all cut surfaces with paint.
• Mow turf at the recommended height. Tall grass quickly becomes weak grass. “Mowing high” does not improve summer hardiness or drought tolerance.

FERTILIZE
• New fall garden transplants once they are established and starting to grow with complete-and-balanced, water-soluble plant food.
• Container plants with timed-release fertilizer every 3-4 months, and with high-nitrogen, water-soluble food each time you water them.
• Iron-deficient plants (yellowed leaves, dark green veins, most prominent on newest growth first) with iron/sulfur additive. Keep iron off masonry surfaces that could be stained.

ON THE LOOKOUT
• Leafrollers attacking foliage of cannas, vinca groundcover, sweetgums, redbuds, cotoneasters, pyracanthas, and other plants. The caterpillars roll leaves together to form their pupal cases. Systemic insecticide Imidacloprid will stop them, but it needs to be applied several weeks before they start attacking the plants.
• Lacebugs continue to turn leaves of Boston ivy, pyracanthas, bur oaks, sycamores, cotoneasters, Texas sages, azaleas, and other plants tan. You’ll see their black droppings on the backs of the leaves, but you probably won’t be able to see the pests themselves. Systemic insecticide Imidacloprid will kill and prevent them, but apply it earlier next year for better results.
• Chinch bugs will attack St. Augustine turf in the hottest, sunniest areas of your turf. Grass will appear dry, but it won’t respond to watering. If you part the grass with your fingers, you’ll see them at the interface of the healthy and dying grass. They’re BB-sized, black with irregular white diamonds on their backs. Control them with an insecticide labeled for them.