Horticulture Hotline 10/09/23
By Bill Lamson-Scribner
Hopefully, you have put out your preemerge for winter weeds by now in your beds and on your turf. On your home turf, you should be done with nitrogen fertilizer (watch out for national brand winterizer fertilizers designed for fescue sold in national chain stores in the area). Potash, iron, and other minor nutrient products can (and should) be used into the fall. A soil test should help you with any rates to apply.
I mentioned that I have eight tea olives that are at least twenty feet tall. Well, I smelled the great fall fragrance, and that put me in the put out the fall organics mode. Neptune’s Harvest Fish / Seaweed Blend was the product I choose to drench around certain plants. The lovely smell of the organics overpowered the sweet tea olive’s smell until I put out ryegrass seed and was watering to get the rye to germinate. I can smell the sweet tea olives once again! Sam, a neighborhood dog, had to get a few baths after rolling in the Fish / Seaweed Blend. I am sure the plants will love the fall organics.
The weather has been extremely dry recently. If you like your landscape to be happy, be sure to water. I am seeing many lawns go dormant and trees losing their leaves prematurely because of this dry spell we are experiencing.
Stinkhorn fungi has been smelling up new mulch beds all over the Lowcountry. This fungus has an awful nasty odor that smells like rotten flesh.
Some plants in nature attract insects with sweet smelling nectar to spread pollen to other plants. This fungus; however, exudes a slime over part of its fruiting body (the mushroom) attracting flies that like rotten flesh or feces. The flies then spread the fungus because spores attach to their bodies. Nice! You have a mushroom that exudes a smell like rotten flesh and feces to attract flies. I guess this is the opposite approach of a gardenia.
The way I control stinkhorn is with a plastic bag like picking up dog poop. Put a bag on your hand, lift the mushroom pull the plastic bag over the mushroom and try not to drop too many spores. These mushrooms are the fruiting body of a fungus that is beneath the soil. The orange fruiting body is attached to hyphae that are underneath the ground decomposing organic matter. In nature, most fungi are good for your soil; however, this can be an unwelcome guest in your yard because of the dumpster smell. Fungi, in general, tend to like acidic soil as do most plants, so I would not try to control them by adjusting the pH. Hopefully, the environmental conditions that cause them to pop up all over the place will go away soon.
There is something that looks like an egg that the mushroom pops out of that some people (mainly in Asia) consider a delicacy. No thank you, I am not interested in something that smells like rotten flesh or feces.
With fall arriving, look for mole crickets tunneling near the surface. Mole crickets do a lot of damage in the fall that often goes undetected because the grass is going dormant (brown) anyway, leaving big dead areas in the spring.
Although it has been dry, large patch fungus is showing up as it does every year. Look for yellowing grass. The yellowing can be in a circular pattern; however, it is not always in a circular pattern. Since large patch is a soil-borne disease, it will usually appear in the same areas year after year. Strobe Pro G will help you combat that disease.
Always read, understand, and follow product label. The product label is a Federal Law.
