Fall Is For Planting 1

Man, what wonderful weather we are having! We need rain (I write these Monday mornings and it looks like we are getting a very small amount of rain), but the last few weeks have been most enjoyable.

Fall is for planting, so now is the time to get those plants in the ground. I have notice several people re-sodding areas as well. New annuals are adding fresh color to our Lowcountry landscape and rye grass is popping up on many lawns (and in some beds).

The many parks and public plantations the Lowcountry has to offer are a great place to get design ideas for your yard or just to spend some time alone or with families and friends.

Planting can take several forms. A random new plant, a small renovation, landscaping an area that was not planted in the past, and planting a whole new yard all require some basic skills and knowledge. Some people will do it themselves and others will hire a professional.

When planting new plants there are a few things you might want to consider. How tall and wide is the plant going to be a full maturity? If it gets too big, you might be transplanting it (last week’s article) in a few years. Is it going to grow into my house and ruin my paint? Are the roots going to tear up my sidewalk or foundation? Do I have overhead wires that the plant is going to grow into leading to a safety issue? Is the plant an evergreen or is it going to lose its leaves in the fall? If you have a bed of sun-loving shrubs, do you want to plant a live oak that will shade them out in a few years, and then you have to replace the shrubs? Is it going to shade my house in the summer, yet let light in during the winter saving electricity?

A landscape designer can help you through some of these questions. Choose a designer whose work you have seen and like. Some designers include lighting, irrigation, bricks, sidewalks, fountains, statues, walls and drainage in their designs and other designers stick more with the basics. If you like the more elaborate features but cash is a little tight, most designers can break the project into phases. Working in phases is nice because you are working toward a goal, and when you are finished, you have the landscape of your dreams.

When you choose your plant material, it is best to go to a local nursery / garden center. They have the varieties of plants that do well here in the Lowcountry. The local nursery / garden center is going to have an employee that works daily with local plants, knows the plant’s advantages and disadvantages, knows if the plant is susceptible to any insects or disease and might even know where you can drive by to see the particular plant growing.

If there are new varieties of a certain plant that are available and resistant to disease or insects, those are the ones you want to plant, and your local nurseryman (or woman) will be able to direct you to them.

So much to cover, so little space; however, I will be back next week (I hope). Will you?

Transplanting Plus A Few

There is a lot to do in the yard, while the air is cool, in the fall. Much of what you do now will affect your success in the yard come spring time.

Before I go another week without mentioning it, I have to say the Sweet Tea Olives smell extra good this year. My office window is flanked by 2 fifteen foot Tea Olives, and they smell great! The Tea Olive always symbolizes fall (football, hunting, fishing, NASCAR chase, volleyball, softball and shrimping) to me and the cooler weather. I do not know if the Tea Olives smell better or after all that hot weather this summer, the cooler weather is just extra nice.

If you plan to move any trees or shrubs this winter, root pruning now will help you increase your chances of a successful transplant. The rule of thumb for trees is for every inch in diameter at breast height you want to dig a root ball that is twelve inches. Since you are moving a tree, sometimes you just have to dig a ball as large as you can without damaging other plants in the area or hardscape features, and you also have to consider physically how big of a ball can you move.

Once you determine where the ball is going to be, it is time to root prune. Since most of our plants are shallow rooted, all you need to do is go around the tree with a shovel and push the shovel straight into the ground. Do not pry or try to dig the tree out of the ground, just sever the roots. A drench with Superthrive and Root Accelerator will encourage new roots to grow in this new ‘ball’ area. Spray the leaves and trunk with Transfilm or Wilt Proof to slow down transpiration. An application of SeaHume will also encourage root growth. Be sure to water since you just severed the roots.

After 30 days the tree will be ready to move. If you have more time, you can continue to root prune and encourage the roots to grow in that new ‘ball’ area. When you are ready to move the plant, dig away from the area that you root pruned, leaving the tree in a moat. Always move the plant by lifting the roots, not the trunk of the tree. Slide the tree onto a tarp or piece of burlap, and move it to its new home. Be sure to plant the transplant at the same level that it was growing before or a little higher. Do not pile soil on top of the root ball.

Drench with Superthrive and Root Accelerator, apply some SeaHume, mulch with flower bed amendment, spray some Transfilm or Wilt Proof, water the leaves and ground, and stake if necessary. Remember to water throughout the winter. The winds and low humidity during the winter can dry out a newly transplanted tree quickly. Good Luck!

Well, I guess I did what I was trying to avoid doing, and I got too in depth about one topic. Judging from the calls on the radio show this past weekend, many of you are thinking about moving plants this fall. Maybe this article will save a plant or two.

Mosquitoes are terrible right now because of the recent rain and the extra high tides. Try treating an area (like your back yard) with Mosquito Beater or Mosquito Repelling Granules. They both work great and you do not have to spray yourself.

One of the guys I work with, Matt (General Manager Possum’s West), has a horse farm in Huger where the mosquitoes are the size of hummingbirds. He treats the area around his grill, his daughter’s swing set / play area, his picnic area, his patio, his front porch, and the area where he mixes his horse feed. Matt says he prefers the Mosquito Repelling Granules because the product is easy to spread and is lasting over three weeks (last month at three weeks we got several inches of rain and he had to reapply). Matt says there is a big difference in the mosquito population where he scatters this organic product and where he does not treat.

October around the house

This week I will continue my list of things to do in the fall along with a brief description of why, and I will mention a product or two that will help solve the issue.

Last week I wrote about large patch, sod webworms, rats, mice, amending flower beds and vegetable gardens, feeding the birds, and winterizing your grass with 00-00-25, Possum Minors, or SeaHume instead of the heavily advertized national name brand fertilizers that are designed for Fescue grass.

Bulbs are a great addition to the landscape. Look for big bulbs when purchasing bulbs. If you have two of the same variety of daffodil bulbs and one bulb is larger, the larger bulb will usually produce the larger flower when the bulb blooms. Be sure to fertilize your bulbs at planting (a tablespoon of 04-04-04 Sustane, 04-00-10, or 03-03-03) and after they bloom. After a daffodil blooms, spray the foliage with Messenger and let the foliage completely die to the ground. Messenger will help the leaves collect more sunlight and produce a bigger bulb for the next spring. As with most purchases, it is better to spend a little more up front and get what you want than save a little money and be unhappy with the results.

As the weather cools, mole damage is more visible. The grass grows slower, so any mole damage does not get repaired as fast as when the grass is actively growing. The mole’s food source is also deeper in the ground, meaning that a mole must displace more soil for a meal. Remember a mole eats 85 to 125 percent of its body weight everyday to stay alive, so he or she will be tunneling. Mole Patrol, Talprid, Mole Repellent, and Revenge Smoke Bombs should help keep this nasty pest out of your yard and in your neighbor’s yard.

The grass has slowed down and is transitioning to dormancy. Some herbicide labels recommend that you not use their product while the grass is in transition. The end user should always read the product’s label. The label supersedes any recommendation from anyone else.

Dormant oils and Neem oils are great to apply to kill overwintering insects and mites. The Neem oil will also control certain fungus diseases. Watch the weather to be sure it is not too hot or too cold to apply these products.

Always read, understand and follow product label. The product label is a Federal Law.

Fall time is a busy time in the yard and around the house. I’m going to start with a list with a brief description and expand on the individual topics in other columns. There might be other products that will work; however, in the interest of space, I’m going to just list a few products.

Large Patch Fungus (aka Brown Patch) flared up big time with the recent rains and sudden drop in temperature. BioRush, Crab Shell, Nature’s Blend, and Serenade are a few organic controls. Cleary’s 3336, Prophesy, Dual Action Fungicide, and PCNB are all good control products. Try to get fungicides out preventively when conditions are right for the disease instead of curatively after the disease has damaged the lawn.

Sod webworms are hatching and munching on leaf blades. Bt and Spinosad are two good organic controls. Tirade and Sevin are two good control products. Again, if you can treat for these insects before they eat half your yard, you will be better off. With the cooler weather any recovery will be very slow, allowing weeds to move into the weakened areas.

The cooler temperatures will bring rats and mice into your house. Snap traps and lures for rodents have come a long way in recent years. Glue boards and baits also do a good job.
Using bait boxes outside your house might save your duct work and wiring.

Amending beds for fall vegetable garden or annual color will pay big dividends. A great one two punch is SeaHume granular and Flower Bed Amendment. For a sandy soil, use three inches of Flower Bed Amendment and till three inches down. For clay soils use two inches of Flower Bed Amendment and till four inches deep. Then top dress the area with the SeaHume. People across the Lowcountry have had great success with this simple recipe.

A simple bird feeder, a bag of high quality bird food, and a bottle of squirrel stopper can provide you a lot of entertainment for the whole family at a very low price. We are lucky to have many different types of birds that can add a new dimension to your landscape.

Stay away from the nationally advertised winterizer fertilizer. Most of the national name brand products are designed for Fescue or other cool season grasses. Try 00-00-25 with 10% iron, Possum Minors, or SeaHume, your grass will thank you in the spring.

Always read, understand and follow product label. The product label is a Federal Law.

While putting out some Tirade and Grubz Out on my Mom’s lawn for the ‘Nasty Rascal, The Chinch Bug’ at dark a few days ago, I noticed many moths flying around as I pushed my spreader. These moths were the moths that lay eggs throughout the lawn. These eggs hatch into the sod webworm larva, a voracious eater of turfgrass.

The moths fly very short distances in a zigzag pattern, most noticeable at dusk. The moths fly up right from your feet like a bobwhite quail. Once they lay the eggs, they will begin to hatch in a week to ten days.

The sod webworm larva is an insatiable eater of all types of grass that we have in the Lowcountry. They like to eat at night and on cloudy days. Birds are a big predator of sod webworms, so eating under the cover of darkness, is a lot safer.

Seeing groups of birds feeding in your yard is a good indication you have sod webworms.
Another way to tell is that your yard appears to have been mowed really short; even though, you have not mowed your grass in a week. The blades of grass have been chewed, giving the turf a very ragged appearance. If you have any doubts, a soap flush of one ounce dish detergent in five gallons of water poured over a four square foot area, should bring them to the surface.

If you see sod webworms in your lawn, you want to react very quickly. These worms can do a lot of damage, fast. Bt and Spinosad are biological (organic) control products that works very well if you apply it while the worms are very young. Tirade, Sevin, and Bug Blaster will nail sod webworms if they have grown a little older.

Mole crickets, large patch, winter weeds, fire ants and sod webworms are just a few things showing up in the yard. Get them before they get you!

Always read, understand and follow product label. The product label is a Federal Law.

Although we still have three months before the end of the year, I am going to have to go out on a limb and give the 2010 Pest of the Year Award in the Insect Division to no other than ‘The Nasty Rascal, The Chinch Bug!’ Since a few weeks ago when I wrote about my thriftiness, I was reminded of a few situations by family and friends that needed to be mentioned in my column.

Armyworms were bad this year; however, they are easy to see, easy to identify the damage, and easy to kill. The chinch bug is about impossible to see (about the size of fine ground pepper), the damage can be confused between fungi, dry areas, and just dead areas and although they are easy to kill once identified, the chinch bug keeps coming back.

I was riding through a neighborhood over the weekend and ever St. Augustine grass lawn had some chinch bug damage. In the old days (Dursban, Diazinon), you could put out a product in May and pretty much control chinch bugs for the season. Now depending on the product, if you get two to three weeks control you are lucky. Most of the products work on the adults and do not affect the eggs that are waiting to hatch.

There are a lot of cases of resistance to certain control products in Florida, so be sure to rotate chemical families of your products (not just product names). Since some of our sod comes up from Florida, we will most likely experience these resistant chinch bugs before long. If you talked to some of the people I talk to, you would swear they are already here.

‘The Nasty Rascal, The Chinch Bug’ got this designation from attacking family’s lawns during the summer while families were taking their summer vacation. The fact that this very small insect and a lot of its buddies can wipe out a beautiful yard in a very short period of time is ruthless. Hard to control weeds like bermudagrass and Virginia button weed always seem to move in on the weaken areas.

There is a fungus in the soil that controls chinch bugs. We had a wet winter, and then it got super dry. When it dried out the fungus in the soil that keeps chinch bugs in check died. When the fungus died, the chinch bugs went crazy. The reason you see chinch bugs along the road, driveway, sidewalks or in the sunniest part of the yard is because that is where the fungus dies out first. Chinch bugs rarely attack grass in the shade because the fungus keeps them in check.

Since chinch bugs attack the grass along the road, driveway, and sidewalks, when people treat for them, they often throw product on hard impermeable surfaces (roads, driveways, and sidewalks). Always be sure to sweep or blow any particles back into the grass to avoid any unwanted runoff. This particular runoff situation would be another reason to refer to this pest as ‘The Nasty Rascal, The Chinch Bug!’

Well, it looks like I’m about to run out of column inches, so I can only mention two items of me being the cheapest person in the world. I only had three TV channels until recently when they had that switch over and you had to get cable or use the box. I was informed that our TV too old to use the box (might have been an in-house conspiracy to get cable and a new TV). I have not purchased a shirt since the beginning of my time. All my shirts have Possum’s or a manufacturer of a product I sell name on them. I got my hunting camo’s with points from a Cabela’s card. Other shirts were presents.

Always read, understand and follow product label. The product label is a Federal Law.

Casual Invaders

Q) I have these insects in my bathroom that have little pinchers, and when you crush them, they smell really bad. How can I get rid of this pest?

A) When you mentioned the pinchers, I was thinking earwigs. When you mentioned the foul odor when you crushed them, I knew for sure you were talking about earwigs!

Earwigs like dead organic matter and moist areas. If you have recently mulched your beds, sometimes you will see earwigs. They are considered mainly an outdoor pest. Earwigs feed on plant material; however, they rarely eat enough to damage plants.

If you have a pest control company under contract, give them a call and they can get rid of this problem very quickly. If you would rather do it yourself, the first place to start is to check and be sure you have a 12-24 inch barrier around your house that is free of vegetation and mulch. Caulk any gaps around pipes, wires, windows, doors or any other area that might be an entry point for the earwig or any other pest (roaches, ants, etc.). Using yellow bug lights on the outside of your house will attract fewer earwigs and other insects to your house. Any wood piles, deep pile of leaves, or other areas that stay moist should be removed. If you have wood for your fire place, you can stack it above ground on metal wood holders, cinder blocks or pallets. These are all good practices to help prevent insects and to protect your house.

If these cultural practices do not take care of the problem, you may consider using a control product around the perimeter of your house and any moisture harboring areas (wood pile). There are many good products on the market that would help you control earwigs as well as other insects.

Another similar pest that we have been getting lots of calls at Possum’s about is lawn shrimp. Lawn shrimp like a humid, high moisture area to live and feed. Ground covers like Asiatic Jasmine, Ivy and other moist mulched areas are perfect places for these crustaceans to live. They feed on decaying plant and animal matter. When they enter your house or garage, lawn shrimp are seeking a better life-style; however, they usually die because there is no food for them (decaying plant and animal matter) and the air is too dry. Lawn shrimp also like the moisture from wood piles, flower pots or any other stationary object they can live underneath.

Since lawn shrimp mainly feed on decaying stuff, they are more a nuisance than anything else. If you are tired of removing them from your dwelling, you may want to remove their habitats from your entry points to your house. Those nice flower containers next to your entryway may need to go. Sealing thresholds of doorways will save on your electric bill and help keep these and other uninvited guest outside. Although there are not any chemicals labeled for the control of lawn shrimp (they are a crustacean not an insect), any good perimeter pest control product should hasten their demise as well as help with roaches and other household pests.

There are many Pest Management Professionals that can help you with these and other pests if you would rather leave it up to the professionals.

Always read, understand and follow product label. The product label is a Federal Law.