Horticulture Hotline 02/27/24
By Bill Lamson-Scribner
New growth is beginning on trees, shrubs, and grass
throughout the Lowcountry. Are you ready? Soil test with custom program?
Removed leaves from the lawn areas? Has your lawn mower been serviced (better
hurry)? Applied preemergent weed preventer to lawn and bed areas? Killed winter
weeds that are competing with your existing grass and getting ready to produce
many more seeds for you to fight next year? Controlled your moles? Pruned what
needs to be pruned? Clean out your beds for sanitation purposes, especially the
beds where plants that normally have leaf spot diseases are located? Applied
SeaHume and other organics, so the landscape above and below ground
(microorganisms, roots) have food to feed the new growth? If you have citrus,
have you hung up your Citrus Leafminer pheromone traps to protect the new
growth?
If you have been plagued by black sooty mold in the past,
right now, apply Dominion Tree & Shrub as a drench to these plants to
control the insects that produce the black sooty mold. Get it out now to
protect the new foliage from insect attack. Insects like that young tender
foliage like us (cabbage, spinach, lettuce). Neem oil and horticulture oil are also
a way to get ahead of the insects. Viburnum, crepe myrtles, and sweetgrass are
a few of the plants we hear the most about at Possum’s.
Now, it is a great time to inspect your trees for torn limbs
that need to be properly pruned. Many of my deciduous trees (trees that lose
their leaves) are either just starting to put on new leaves or still naked. Have
you inspected your yard for mosquito breeding areas? Do you have liriope that
needs to be cut or mowed. Cast-Iron plants? Have you seen any Lady Banks Roses,
Saucer (tulip) Magnolia (my favorite small tree) or Carolina Jasmine blooming?
How about the smell of sweet tea olive?
For all you sweetgum tree ‘haters’ out there because of
their mace (not to be confused with the politician) like gumballs, this is the
time you can do something about it. If you look up at your sweetgum tree right
now, you should see little off-white cream-colored flowers that are going to
become this year’s crop of gumballs.
There is a product called Snipper that will destroy the
flower, preventing the development of the gumball. This is not a one-time
application, so plan to do it anytime you do not want to have gumballs. The
timing is very important, so if you miss the flowers this year, begin to make
your plans for next year. Since the application involves drilling holes in the
sweetgum tree, a licensed and insured tree care professional is always a good
idea. Getting on their schedule in the fall, so they can measure the tree’s
diameter, give you an estimate and order in the product, so they will be ready
when the timing is right and will help with the success of the application.
Last fall there was a crazy amount of large patch fungus. Are
you ready to prevent the disease from attacking your grass? When the grass is
coming out of dormancy, it is very susceptible to the disease. Look in the same
areas that you had it last fall for the disease.
Always read, understand, and follow product labels. The
product label is Federal Law.
