Gardening This Weekend: July 30, 2026
If you were wondering what you ought to be doing in your landscape and garden this weekend, I have your list for you.
PLANT
• New turfgrasses from seed, sod, or plugs. Delaying much longer risks possibility of grass not being well established before winter. Water new plantings 5-8 minutes morning and evening for the first couple of weeks as they establish roots.
• Annuals, including zinnias, marigolds, celosias, disease-resistant vincas, pentas, and other heat-tolerant types for rich fall colors.
• Cucumbers, crookneck and zucchini squash, bush green beans, and if you have room for a 20×20-ft. plot (required for good pollination), corn.
PRUNE
• Continue to mow lawn at the recommended height for the type of grass that you’re growing. Raising the mower setting encourages thin turf, much more susceptible to invasion by weeds.
• Spent seedheads and dried flower stalks from perennial gardens.
• Check rose bushes for signs of rose rosette virus. See my website for details. Plants that are not impacted by RRV should be pruned back by one-third. Each cut should be made directly above a bud facing out from the center of the plant.
FERTILIZE
• Bermudagrass if it’s been more than 8 weeks since last you fed it. Apply an all-nitrogen fertilizer that has half or more of its nitrogen in slow-release form. Wait 6 weeks to fertilize St. Augustine turf.
• Patio pots and hanging baskets at least weekly with a high-nitrogen, water-soluble plant food.
• Acid-loving plants that are showing iron deficiency (yellowed leaves with dark green veins, most prominent on the newest twigs) with iron and sulfur product. Keep iron products off masonry and painted surfaces that could be stained.
ON THE LOOKOUT
• Apply the original Image or Sedgehammer to eliminate nutsedge in your lawn and landscape. Timing is critical, so first application should be made now.
• Sticky residue on tree and shrub foliage is probably the honeydew secreted by aphids, lace bugs and other sucking insects. If plants can easily be sprayed with general-purpose insecticide labeled for these pests, do so. However, for large shade trees it’s probably not a practical solution.
• Apply preventive spray of Malathion or other labeled insecticide to pecans to protect the fruit from hickory shuckworms and pecan weevils. First spray should be made in next 7 to 10 days. Follow-up spray two or three weeks later.
(Note: Pecans that are already falling with black patches on their husks have been ruined by pecan scab fungus. It is too late to try to control that disease for this year.)