With Irma gone, there are a few things in the landscape that
I wanted to be sure didn’t get overlooked.
Have you used a preemergent herbicide to protect yourself
against winter weeds that terrorize your yard in the early Spring? The wet
weather we have had will certainly led to annual bluegrass issues.
Have you fed your shrubs and trees for the winter? They like
to go to bed with a full belly too. Many shrubs are putting on that last flush
of growth. Tree’s and shrub’s root systems grow all year here, so don’t forget
the SeaHume.
Have you winterized your lawn? Be aware that most of the
national name brand products being advertised heavily right now are not for the
grasses we have here in the Lowcountry. They would be good for fescue or rye in
the upstate, but not so good for our warm season grasses. 00-00-25, Possum
Minors, and / or SeaHume should do you right here.
Look up. Do you see limbs that got damaged during the storm
hanging your tree? Broken limbs are showing up good now that the leaves have
wilted. Contact an arborist before a limb contacts you or your car or your
house, or your child, or your …
Since we had the salt water flooding, the best thing for our
landscape was all the rain before the salt water hit our landscape. If our
plants were super thirsty from a drought, and their first drink of water was
salt water, the damage to the plants could have been much greater. Many of the
landscapes were still super saturated with fresh water that would help dilute
some of the salt water.
Now is the time to flush out the salt water if you have not
already. Although watering your yard is probably the last thing you want to do,
you need to flush out the salt. Using a product like Possum’s Salt Free makes
this very easy. Use 1.5 oz per thousand square feet in 2 – 4 gallons of water
for 2 – 4 consecutive weekly treatments.
We have sold Salt Free to homeowners, to parks and to large
sport complexes with great results for over 10 years. Some of the sport
complexes inject it in their irrigation system, since they are watering with
salty water. As a result, they are constantly removing the salt that they are
adding!
Gypsum is another product you can use to “flush out” salt.
100 pounds per thousand would be a good place to start and apply ProMag with it
at 12 pounds per thousand. Gypsum and ProMag are granular. Some people prefer
granular.
Excell (start at 25 pounds per thousand and apply weekly
until soil test looks good) and SeaHume G (start at 15 pounds per thousand and
apply weekly until soil test looks good) will also help with high sodium soils.
Excell and SeaHume G are both granular as well.
Doing soil test while you try to rid your soil of salt, will
help you greatly. Checking the sodium levels along with the base saturation
levels will let you know how successful you are at flushing the sodium.
As always, if this is hard to understand, hire a
professional.
Always read, understand and follow product label. The
product label is a Federal Law.
