Sweetgrass - Purple in the Fall

 

Horticulture Hotline 11/01/21

By Bill Lamson-Scribner

 

Question: Bill, I have a white, sticky, fuzzy fungus on my Sweetgrass plant. What can I do? I am retired now and my wife expects me to help her keep a nice yard when I’m not fishing or emailing jokes to my friends.

 

Answer: Congratulations on your retirement! Good luck with your fishing!

 

The purple of the sweetgrass plant is looking lovely right now throughout the Lowcountry. Another sign of fall – oysters anyone?

 

Your Sweetgrass plant most likely has a soft body, sucking bug called a mealy bug attacking it. Mealybugs are like aphids, scale, white flies, the “nasty rascal, the chinch bug”, lace bug and other sucking bugs in that they suck plant juices or sap from the host plant.

 

I was surprised when I first saw mealybugs on Sweetgrass. I usually associate mealybugs with plants grown inside buildings, homes (interior plantscapes) or greenhouses. I usually think of ornamental grasses as being pest free – wrong!

 

As with any sucking bug, you want to get the situation under control fast, or you will have the secondary problem that looks way worse than the fuzzy, airy mealybugs. The secondary problem is the dreaded sooty mold.

 

Sooty mold is the black mold that grows on the excrement (poop) of certain sucking bugs. Have you ever seen a black gardenia (from white fly poop) or crepe myrtle (from aphid poop)? Certain insects have a very short digestive track and they are drinking sap from a plant that is pressurized. The sap goes in their mouth and out their behind very rapidly covering the plant with a sugary substance (often called honey dew) that this mold grows.

 

In human terms, if you could connect your mouth to, let’s say, a keg of beer or maybe a soft serve ice cream machine at some point the beer or ice cream would be coming out of somewhere (nose, ears, …) leaving a mess. Insects have hardly any digestive tract to slow things down.

 

A very effective way to control these mealybugs, while not hurting the beneficial insects, is to use an insecticidal soap. Also drench the area around the Sweetgrass with Dominion.

Dominion is a long-term systemic insecticide that will free you up for more time fishing.  

 

Large Patch Fungus is really active. Fall Army Worms are still very active. Rats, roaches, mole crickets and fire ants thrive in the fall. It is a good time to apply Neem Oil or Horticulture oil for over wintering insects.

 

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

Visit our website at possumsupply.com.

 

Yellow Leaves?

 

Horticulture Hotline 10/25/21

By Bill Lamson-Scribner

 

I’m not going to mention s$d w*bw@rm, Ar^y Wo%^s, L@$&3 P@tch or Bro%n P@tch. Here are a few things to do while enjoying the beautiful Lowcountry weather.

 

One thing that I’m getting asked about right now is yellow leaves or discolored leaves on gardenias, azaleas, camellias, crepe myrtles, magnolias, viburnum, … For the most part these are old leaves that are falling off and are going to make room for new leaves. With the exception of the crepe myrtle, this list is all evergreen plants and tree. Just because these plants are evergreen doesn’t mean that they never lose their leaves. Evergreens will lose many leaves between now and April, just not all at once like the crepe myrtle. I have seen many azaleas that are almost naked when the new leaves appear in late February early March (depending on the weather).

 

Leaves are interesting in many ways. Chlorophyl is the green in leaves that captures the sunlight and by photosynthesis (probably the longest word ever used in a Horticulture Hotline – and I spelled it right – yes!) produces carbohydrates. Chlorophyl masks the other colors of the leaf. In the fall when chlorophyl is not being produced, the other colors of a leaf are visible. That is how we get fall color - reds (maples), yellows (sweet gum).

 

Due to changes in available control products, mole crickets have become quite the pest again. The populations have become so high that they are doing damage in areas that they didn’t really mess with before the availability of these products went away for certain uses. Mole Crickets overwinter as adults, so they will do damage throughout the winter. Since your grass will not have chlorophyl in the leaves, it will be harder to see the damage. Your grass will already be brown. With low humidity, drying winds during the winter, if mole crickets have separated the soil from the roots, the grass plant can desiccate and die, leaving big dead areas of grass in the spring. Mole crickets fly and are very mobile so even if you kill them today they can return.    

 

Did you put out a preemergent product to your lawn and beds for winter annual weed control in?

 

I’m not going to use the words, but rainy days and warm temperatures make disease flourish in the yard, especially yards that are already under attack. T-Methyl and Strobe are two good systemic fungicides with different modes of action to avoid resistance to the disease to apply now.

 

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

 

Winterizing Turf, Trees, and shrubs

 

Horticulture Hotline 10/18/21

By Bill Lamson-Scribner

 

Yes, it is time to winterize your landscape. SeaHume should be used alone or with the 00-00-25, depending on the results from your soil test. Look for a product with a 00 for the first number (nitrogen). A 00-00-25 with sulfate of potash and minors would be great. If you do not need the potash, consider just the SeaHume, a wonderful combination of seaweed and humic acid. If you would like your yard to stay green later into the fall, try Possum Minors.

 

Possum Minors as its name implies is full of iron and other minor nutrients that promote ‘green ‘without top ‘growth’. By having your plants including grass plants green at this time of year the leaves can capture more sun and produce more carbohydrates to grow roots. Since the mowing has slowed down, you will be able to enjoy the ‘green’ for a longer period of time, since the ‘green’ won’t be getting mowed off. 

 

SeaHume will help grass, trees, shrubs, and flowers throughout the winter. SeaHume will help mitigate salt damage. The seaweed part of SeaHume has over 60 minor nutrients, carbohydrates, amino acids, gibberellins, auxins, cytokinin’s, anti-oxidants and other bio stimulants. The humic acid is also full of bio stimulants that help make nutrients that are in the soil available to the plant, help with soil structure, grow roots, and feed the microorganisms in the soil.

 

Trees grow most of their feeder roots over the winter. SeaHume will help grow these feeder roots over the winter preparing the tree for whatever the spring weather brings. Drought like this year?

 

Beware of the national ad campaigns talking about winterizing fertilizers for turf. These products are usually formulated for cool season grasses (rye, fescue). I saw one over the weekend that was a 32-00-10. Not exactly what we want to put on our yard in mid-October in the Lowcountry. Just ask Clemson University.

 

Have you ever had winter kill? Now is the time to prepare your grass for the wide variations in temperatures we have. If you had winter kill in the past, you need to be sure to correct low and poorly drained areas, reduce thatch in the yard, increase air movement in low areas, keep your lawn hydrated and feed (with the right food for the winter).

 

Mow your grass lower than normal (centipede 1.0 to 1.5 inches, St. Augustine 2.5 to 3.0 inches). By mowing your grass lower, you will increase the air movement around the crown of the plant, so cold air will not settle at the crown of the plant and damage the grass. In Florida helicopters fly low over citrus groves that are in valleys to get the cold air out. Tall grass or thatch will insulate the crown of the plant like a goose down jacket, keeping the cold air near the crown where it can cause winter kill. Centipede lawns usually get winter kill the worst if temperatures plummet quickly.

 

Fine blade Zoysia grass can grow very dense and get thatch. De-thatching, verticutting, using Bio Grounds Keeper, and regular topdressing should be part of your maintenance schedule.  

 

Moles?

 

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