De-Thatch or Not

Horticulture Hotline 02/21/22

 

Now is a great time to bring in a soil test and get ready for this year.  Soil amendments often take months to affect the soil.   If you take your tests now, you will be well on your way for 2022 with a custom program for a beautiful lawn. Here is what David Cebula had to say, “The soil test recommendations from Possum’s immediately rectified a cation exchange issue by identifying what amendments the lawn needed. My lawn greens up earliest and stays green the longest now that I followed their recommendations.”

 

I get a lot of questions from people that have moved here from areas where they grow cool season grasses (bluegrass, ryegrass, fescue) about de-thatching the lawn with a de-thatching machine. You want to de-thatch or aerate your grass when it is actively growing.  Since warm season grasses grow on runners (cool season grasses grow in clumps), it is very traumatic to de-thatch a lawn in the Lowcountry.  De-thatching rips up runners and makes a huge mess for you to clean up.  I usually prefer to de-thatch by core aerating and leaving the cores with their micro-organisms on top of the grass to decompose the thatch. Top dressing with Cotton Burr Compost also aids in the decomposition of the thatch layer. Bio Grounds Keeper is a granular product that has thatch eating microbes is always good addition.

 

If your lawn has excessive amounts of thatch, you can use a de-thatcher in May when the grass is actively growing.  After using this machine and raking up all the debris, you will understand why I like core aerating instead of de-thatching. The old saying is, “run de-thatcher for 10 minutes / rake up debris for 10 hours.”   Core aerating will manage thatch and give you the extra benefit of lessening compaction and bring air to the roots.  Aerating also helps with water, fertilizer and control products penetration into the soil.  For the best affect, top dress with Cotton Burr Compost after aerating and add Bio Grounds Keeper. If you are fertilizing and mowing the correct amounts, you should be able to manage thatch easily.

 

Moles, preemergent weed control, soil test, fire ants, mole crickets, leaves, fleas, kill winter weeds before they seed, pruning (especially cold damaged and crepe myrtles), and soil for spring gardens seem to be the hot topics at Possum’s.

 

The Insect No One Has...

 

Horticulture Hotline 02/14/22

 

Since I have been writing and talking about preemergent herbicides a lot lately, I’m going to include two pictures – one person used a preemergent product for winter weeds (nice dormant zoysia grass lawn) and one didn’t (a mess of green weeds). It is time to use a preemergent weed control product for small seeded summer annual weeds. What are you going to do?

 

This week I am going to try to cover cockroach. The cockroach always wins the most called about / asked about insect award, and is second to the mole in the overall called about / asked about pest. The person asking about roaches is never the person with the issue. They are always asking for their brother, mother, cousin, friend, …

 

There are many different species of roaches (at least 69). I’m going to concentrate on the most common roaches that dwell in the Lowcountry. To most people the roach is like a snake – the only good one is a dead one.

 

For controlling roaches, you want to think like a roach, monitor the situation, employ non-chemical strategies, and use control products (organic, Green, conventional) if needed.

 

The German cockroach is the small roach that likes kitchens and bathrooms. These roaches like to live inside and can be introduced to your house from boxes or containers that are carried into your house. Boxes are like a hotel for roaches and more and more boxes are coming to our homes. German roaches multiply very quickly once inside.

 

The American cockroach AKA “water bug”, “Palmetto bug”, and “South Carolina state bird”, is the other main cockroach in this area. These roaches like to live on boats, in sewers as well as in your house.

 

The Brownbanded cockroach is also common to this area. These roaches like to live up high in cabinets, high shelves in closets, pantries, desks, bookshelves or other areas away from the kitchen. The Brownbanded cockroach can live in drier areas than the German roach and usually will inhabit these areas so it does not have to compete with the German roach. The American and German cockroach will out compete the Brownbanded cockroach.

 

There are other species of cockroaches in this area, and if you control the above three species, you will most likely control the others as well. Asian cockroaches in mulched beds are becoming more of an issue. First you will want to monitor and identify which species is bothering you. There are glue boards you can put out in areas you have seen them. You can look for fecal pellets and egg casings – “Honey, what are you doing?” – “I’m looking for roach fecal pellets and egg casings” - “No football on today?” ….  We also sell these aerosol “flushing agents” that you can spray in areas that you suspect activity, and the roaches will quickly come running out of hiding, giving you the opportunity to personally smack them.

 

If you have roaches, sanitation is really important. Keeping dirty dishes, garbage and sources of water to a minimum will help limit the population of roaches. Even clutter in a house provides harborage sights for the roach. Caulking cracks, weatherproofing windows and doors, sealing pipes and eliminating other entry points will also help with roaches as well as other pests.

 

For control products the baits inside the house do a very good job. These baits exploit all the bad habits of roaches. Baby roaches eat the fecal pellets of adult roaches to develop into adult roaches themselves. Roaches also cannibalize their dead. So, if one roach eats the bait, poops, then dies. Another roach will eat this poop and eventually die. Another roach will see the dead roach and eat it and die as well. This transfer of active ingredient creates a great “domino effect” that has impressed many people. The specific nature of this application and the low amount of active ingredient used makes this control method a “green” application, depending on the product you use.

 

Using the growth regulators, either Gentrol or Nylar, will also help break up the roach’s life cycle. These growth regulators will extend the period of control.

 

Outside you will want to do a perimeter treatment. There are several products on the market that will nail these roaches (along with many other pests). Bifen, Viper, Cyonara Lawn and Garden, Intice Perimeter 10 (“green”) and EcoPCO WP X (“green”) are a small sample of many products that are available. Generally, treating the perimeter involves spraying or spreading 3 to 10 feet out from your house in the mulched areas. If you are spraying apply plenty of water with the product to carry it down where the pests are hiding. Also spray about 3 feet up the side of your house, around windows, porches, garages, eaves, garbage areas and other areas where pests may be found. Read and follow label directions for the specifics of doing a perimeter treatment for the product you choose to use.

 

If searching for roach fecal pellets with a flashlight does not sound like fun to you, remember there are a bunch of Pest Management Professionals in the area that would love to do this inspection for you.

 

To Prune or Not To Prune

 

Horticulture Hotline 02/07/22

By Bill Lamson-Scribner

 

I stepped out of my house to get a little pruning done after working on soil tests all morning and it was just plain NASTY. 40 degree’s and spitting rain was not my idea of a yardwork day. A good day for the Oyster Festival…

 

Some plants were damaged by the recent freezing temperatures, and if you can wait to see where they begin to leaf out, you might be surprised that you have more plant left that is not damaged than you thought. Take a lantana as an example. The leaves may be black and nasty looking, but the branches may be alive and well. Leaves are thin and mostly water. The branches and stems are denser and contain more sugars that make them less susceptible to cold damage. Often on a lantana, the leaves get damaged; however, the plant totally comes back so you don’t lose any of the size (mass) of the total plant.

 

Oleander is another plant that will leaf out along it’s main stems, if you can wait a few weeks. If you just want to reduce the size of the plant, stagger your cuts. Instead of giving the plant a flat top at 8 inches, taper down from the middle of the plant. Have the middle say 14 inches, and as you go to the outer area make your cuts at say 10 inches then down to 8 inches.

 

Judging from the talk in the stores, rats, mice and roaches sought shelter from the cold in our nice warm homes. Great!

 

When I see those buds on my bald cypress swelling, I think of one thing – ORGANICS!

Cotton Burr Compost, Nature’s Blend, 09-00-00 Corn Gluten, Blood Meal, Bone Meal, Feather Meal, Cotton Seed Meal, 08-02-04 Sustane, 06-04-00 Milorganite and / or SeaHume are great products to use now on your ornamental plants and turf. If you plan to use just one product, I would go with SeaHume now. After the oaks lose their leaves, use Cotton Burr Compost or Nature’s Blend as a mulch instead of pine straw (low nutrition) or bark (nutrition not available). If you use Cotton Burr Compost, or Nature’s Blend as a mulch, every time it rains your plants will get a drink of compost tea, and you know how we like our tea around here!

 

For best results spread over the whole bed; however, you can spread the products around individual plants. If you plan to do individual plants, be sure to cover where the roots are and out a little past where you think they are. Remember to keep compost or mulch off the trunk of trees and shrubs.

 

As microorganisms break the organics down into a usable form to the plants, organic products feed the soil. When the soil is cold, these microorganisms are pretty much inactive. As the temperatures warm up, the microorganisms become more active and begin to break down the organic material and make the nutrients available to the plant. The plant is beginning to grow and put-on new leaves as the temperature warms up, so like magic there is food available to the plant right when it needs it most. The forest with its leaves, twigs, limbs, and microorganism population is fertilized in this manner.

 

Cotton Burr Compost, Nature’s Blend, composted chicken manure, and composted cow manure are all composted to the point that they do not tie up nitrogen. Some organics can actually steal nutrients away from the plants while they decompose fully. Wood chips, fresh raked leaves, or grass clippings are best put into a compost pile until you are unable to tell what they were originally, and they are fully composted.

 

Nature’s Blend not only contains Cotton Burrs, but also composted cattle manure, alfalfa meal and humates.  Alfalfa meal is high in nitrogen and contains Triacantanol, a natural growth enhancer (basal breaks in roses, root growth …), and may help in the suppression and control of certain fungal diseases.

 

SeaHume is a combination of cold-water kelp (Ascophyllum nodosum) and humates.

The seaweed is full of sixty major and minor nutrients, amino acids, carbohydrates and natural occurring plant growth promoting substances (bio stimulants, gibberellins) that increase plant vigor, quality and yield. Humates increase the availability of nutrients in the soil, increase root growth, keeps nutrients in area that roots can reach (increase CEC), make the soil more friable and many other benefits.

 

Since SeaHume and Nature’s Blend have a cocktail of good organics, I’m starting with them this year. The 09-00-00, 08-02-04, or 06-04-00 I will use later. I’m hoping to bring my cold damage plants back and have them healthy to repair themselves from the pruning back some of them will get.

                                                                                       

Control summer annual weeds before they emerge with preemergent herbicides. Crabgrass will be germinating soon, so get your preemerge of choice out now! Kill winter weeds that are up now before they produce viable seed for next year. Try not to prune azaleas now or you will be removing their flower buds and their spring flowers.

 

Before another season of applying products to your landscape, now is a great time to measure your turf areas and your bed areas, so you know how much product to use.

 

Read and follow product label.