Wow, the start to 2015 has either been cold, rainy, or just
plain nasty. The sun has hardly peaked out at all (must have been quite the New
Year’s celebration for the sun or it is a Buckeye)!
Fungus loves this weather. The grass is pretty much wet all
day long, giving the fungal spores an opportunity to germinate and spread.
While going through neighborhoods, I see the large circles of brown (large)
patch in St. Augustine and centipede. On ball fields that never get fungus (I
mean haven’t had fungus in the 24 years that I have worked with them), fungus
is popping up. On one ball field after identifying the disease, I said, “what fungicide
do you have in your shed?” (It is always good to use a product you have if it
effective against the target pest you are after – in this case a fungus.) The
grounds superintendent said, “we do not have any fungicides. We haven’t had a
fungus since the complex was built.” I guess that complex was built 15 years
ago.
Brown patch usually occurs in irregular circles. The good
thing is that you do not need to treat your whole lawn, just the areas you see
the discoloration. The areas will be bigger than this, but if the area you see
is the size of a penny, you would want to treat an area the size of a quarter. In
reality the area might be 3 feet across and you would want to treat an area 5
feet across.
Camellia blooms also took a hit during the cold. Pull the
damaged ones off your plant and pick up the dead ones from the ground (helps
with petal blight and looks cleaner). There should be plenty of buds ready to
explode and give you more color. The old damaged blooms will take away from the
beauty of the new blooms.
The perennial furry friend in the landscape is certainly
making his presence known. Yes, I writing about the dreaded mole. I still
recommend a 3 prong approach when controlling moles. These 3 steps are:
- Kill the mole (trap or poison)
- Manage its food source (Sevin)
- Repel other moles from your yard (Repellex).
The three prong approach usually controls moles for the
longest period of time.
We are rapidly approaching the time for preemergent
herbicides to be applied once again!
