Garden Solutions - November 2012

            In November, you still want to watch for dry periods and water your plants if the soil dries out, especially for new plantings. Roots of plants grow in winter months and need moisture before the ground freezes. You can plant trees and shrubs anytime the ground is not frozen. This will give the plant more time to become established before the next hot summer. Add a fire pit to your outdoor living space and enjoy cool evenings around a crackling fire. Remember to turn your clocks back the first weekend in November. There are many things to do in the yard and garden before the season ends. So, dig in to the tasks listed below and enjoy the outdoors as much as you can!

• Now is a good time to collect soil samples and test the pH and nutritional levels. Lime will increase the pH level if it is low. Sulfur will lower the pH level if it is high. The product labels and the staff at your local Garden Center can help you determine the rate to use for your situation.
• Till the vegetable garden to expose many insect pests to winter cold and reduce their numbers in next year’s garden.
• Continue mowing lawn grasses as long as they keep growing, 2-3” high is good.
• Apply Winterizer fertilizer to lawns to strengthen plant stems and roots for winter growth and early spring green up.
• Plant tulips and other spring bulbs now through December.
• Start paperwhite, narcissus, and amaryllis bulbs indoors now through January.
• After the first hard freeze, mulch rose bushes heavily to a depth of 12” to cover the plant graph area properly using bark, compost, or straw with rose collars. Prune back longer canes to 24-36” to prevent whipping from wind in the winter. Hold off on heavy pruning until April of next year.
• Roll up and store garden hoses on a warm, sunny day.
• Towards the end of the month, be sure to shut off and drain any outdoor water pipes or irrigation systems that may freeze during cold weather.
• Cover garden ponds with bird or pond netting to prevent leaves from fouling the water. Oxygen depletion from rotting organic matter can cause a winterkill of pond fish.
• Take steps to prevent garden ponds from freezing solid in winter. Using a floating garden heater in the pond will lessen the chance of ice damage.
• Set up bird feeders. Birds also appreciate a source of unfrozen drinking water during the winter. Use one of the many styles of birdbath heaters or heated birdbaths available at garden centers.
• When feeding the birds, set up a variety of feeder types to get the best assortment of birds to come to your yard. Tube feeders are good for songbirds, platform feeders are good for cardinals and larger birds, and suet is a great source of fat and energy for woodpeckers and all bird types.
• Winter houseplant care: reduce or eliminate fertilizer until spring, shorter days mean slower growth, slower growth means less frequent watering. Plants in plastic pots need less water than those in clay pots. Plants in cooler rooms need less water and will have slower growth than those in warm rooms. Creating additional humidity is always beneficial. An easy way to increase humidity is to use trays filled with water and large pebbles. Place the plants on the pebbles so they will not sit in the water, but they can get the benefit of a higher humidity level as the water evaporates.

            The fall season is ending, but outdoor enjoyment can continue especially with the new outdoor living trends of today. Can you believe that it is November already? Wow, from November 1, there are only 22 more days until Thanksgiving, 51 days until the first day of winter, 55 more days until Christmas and 62 more days until January 1, 2013! And you know how fast the next 62 days are going to fly by! So fasten your seatbelts and enjoy the outdoors as you prepare for winter….Enjoy your yard and garden in every season!

Time to go….See you in the Garden....

Sandi Hillermann McDonald

Garden Solutions - October 2012

 

             Trees, trees, trees, now is a great time to talk about trees and how valuable they are to us.  Many of us remember growing up, lying under a shade tree with our back against the bark chewing on a piece of grass, reading a book, or playing games like hide and seek around them.

            In addition to great memories, trees bring a true beauty to all landscapes. The right tree in the right place provides shade to your home, creating a cooling insulation from hot summer days. 

            Fall is the best time to plant trees. Fall’s cooler temperatures and adequate rainfall ease the tree’s transition into its new home and decreases transplant shock and stress. Are you looking for an excuse to plant a tree? Well look no further, as the following statistics reveal just how important trees are to us in a community setting:

“Landscaping can reduce air conditioning costs by up to 50 percent, by shading the windows and walls of a home.”- American Public Power Association

“If you plant a tree today on the west side of your home, in 5 years your energy bills should be 3% less. In 15 years the savings will be nearly 12%.” - Dr. E. Greg McPherson, Center of Urban Forest Research

“A mature tree can often have an appraised value of between $1,000 and $10,000.” - Council of Tree and Landscape Appraisers

“In one study, 83% of realtors believe that mature trees have a strong or moderate impact” on the salability of homes listed for under $150,000; on homes over $250,000, this perception increases to 98%” - Arbor National Mortgage & American Forests

“Trees properly placed around buildings can save 20-50 percent in energy used for heating.” - USDA Forest Service

“Trees can be a stimulus to economic development, attracting new business and tourism. Commercial retail areas are more attractive to shoppers, apartments rent more quickly, tenants stay longer, and space in a wooded setting is more valuable to sell or rent.” - The Arbor Day Foundation

“In laboratory research, visual exposure to settings with trees has produced significant recovery from stress within five minutes, as indicated by changes in blood pressure and muscle tension.” - Dr. Roger S. Ulrich, Texas A&M University

“They look pretty”- Mike Smith (WUFC) and Bernie Hillermann (Co-Founder of Hillermann Nursery & Florist)

            So whatever reason you want to use…..now is a great time to plant a tree!! Start making your memories today!! Plant trees for energy conservation, home improvement, curb appeal, or better yet, to get your new memories started!! Check out the tree selection suggested by the Washington Urban Forestry Council by logging onto this website: http://www.ci.washington.mo.us/, then go to the City Departments/Parks & Recreation Menu to find the WUFC link. Their suggested plant list is on this site. Check it out!! There are many great varieties to choose from in local garden centers as well. Ask for proper planting instructions as you purchase so you can have guaranteed success. Enjoy your time under the trees!

Here are additional Garden Solutions for October:

• Lawn seeding should be finished by October 15^th this month to insure germination and plant growth yet this fall. Choose a seed mix for your specific lawn area: sun, shade, sun/shade, play, drought, etc. Fescue mixtures are best for durability for our area.
• Be sure to aerate and renovate your yard when over seeding for BEST results. Without these steps, it is like throwing grass seed on to concrete because our soil is so hard now from such a dry summer.
• Keep leaves raked or blown off of lawns to prevent smothering new grass plants, especially in shady areas.
• Winterize your lawn mowers before storage, by draining gasoline from the tank and the gas line.  It is also a great time to sharpen the blades so you will be ready for spring!
• Put a Winterizer type fertilizer on all lawns from mid October through November to promote early spring green growth, and have the best-looking lawn in the neighborhood.
• Now is a good time to apply lime if your soil tests indicate the need. (Acidic soils require lime, a pH of 6.8 or below.) Use the recommended rate of 50 pounds per 500 square feet per treatment.  Free pH testing is available at Hillermann Nursery & Florist.
• YOUR HOME’S CURB APPEAL can be enhanced with pumpkins, gourds, corn stalks, mums, pansies, kale, and the great selection of other fall plants that are grown for the fall season!! Ornamental grasses add a lot of texture as well. Let your imagine run wild!
• Pre-emergent herbicides can be applied to control cool season weeds, such as chickweed and henbit now.
• The average first frost usually arrives about October 15^th to October 20^th. A few degrees of frost protection can be gained by covering tender plants with sheets, newspaper, burlap or lightweight fabric row covers. DO NOT USE PLASTIC; this tends to “draw in” the cold temperatures.
• Cannas, Dahlias and Elephant Ears can be dug when frost nips their foliage.
• Plant bulbs now for spring bloom (Tulips, Hyacinths, Daffodils, Crocus, etc.). Plant bulbs into groupings for a massed effect of spring color. To fertilize them, use bone meal or a complete bulb fertilizer at planting time.
• Bulb container gardens can be planted with a lasagna type planting arrangement (layering of bulbs in potting soil). Check with your garden center for ideas and recipes on this feature.
• Continue to water your plants, especially evergreens, since soils are dry. Until the ground freezes, they need moisture for root growth even if they are going dormant. Once a week should be sufficient.
• After perennial and flower beds have been cleaned and raked for winter preparation, refresh them with a bark mulch for the winter months at a depth of 2-3”.
• Towards the end of October, trees should be fertilized and tree spikes at their drip line are a perfect choice. Use one tree spike per one inch of tree trunk diameter. This will make for beautiful foliage next spring!
• Gourds should be harvested when their shells become hard or when their color changes from green to brown.
• DON’T take hummingbird feeders down before mid October. The bird’s biological clock tells them when to migrate south. THEY ARE NOT dependent on us removing the feeders at a certain time! Hummingbirds who have started their migration will appreciate finding your feeders along the way.

See you next month “in the garden.”

Sandi Hillermann McDonald

Garden Solutions - September 2012

The Best Time of the Year is NOW!!!

When I was a kid, I loved summer - no school, warm sunshine and lots of fun and mischief to get into. Now that I am a Grandma, my season preferences have also matured. Over the years, I have come to enjoy all the offerings of fall. The cool, crisp mornings that gives way to warm days and starry nights. Fall color in Missouri is exceptional with the turning of leaves on trees - colors so vivid and alive that they jump out of the landscape. Driving past fields of pumpkins gets the kids excited that Halloween candy is yet to come. The treat of eating sweet grapes fresh off the vine and juicy apples plucked from the trees. And of course, fall sports begin soon.

There is no better time of year than this abundant season to catch your bearings, reevaluate the year, enjoy the harvest and relax. It is also the best time to take a few moments to invest in your home. You can do many simple tasks now that save you time in the spring when you are twice as busy.

Our yards definitely DID suffer this summer. Thank goodness, the hottest month of the year is now behind us. Well, there is no better time to renovate and reseed than this month of September. In fact, the perfect window of opportunity for yard growth is August 15th- October 15th. Even though it may be hot and dry, it is the perfect time of year to aerate and over seed established yards. The process should be done as follows: Cut the lawn a little shorter than normal, 2-3 inches. Then run over the yard with a core aerator (this machine pulls plugs out of the ground about the size of your little finger). This whole process works best after a good rain or a deep watering. The core aeration process helps with the soil aeration, lessens soil compaction and makes for better, stronger grass root systems. Now, run a renovator over the area. This machine slices the ground with many little teeth and will break down the dirt clods from the core aeration process and bring up any dead thatch in the area. Now you are ready to sow your grass seed (use a 50% spread rate for a 50% stand of grass) and add fertilizer (a starter type fertilizer that is high in phosphorus is best). For a 50% stand of grass or less, you will not need additional cover such as straw. If you are over seeding bare areas or new lawn areas, you will need to straw these areas to hold moisture for seed protection. For the specific grass seed type, shop for seed specific to your area of need: shade, sun, part-shade and sun, etc. There are special grass seed mixes made up for our Mid-Missouri region that perform beautifully here so, make sure you check that out for guaranteed success.

You can then re-fertilize and add a Winterizer fertilizer to the entire area in late October or November. This whole process will “promise” you a beautiful strong lawn for spring of next year. Water is, of course, essential for this growth if Mother Nature doesn’t cooperate. New lawn installations are also best at this time of year as well.

You need to continue thinking about watering during this month … and remember that there are ways to make it economical and easy, just ask the experts. The wildlife in your yard, as well as all new and established plantings, needs our help this year as we have experienced several exceptionally dry summers. Fall in Missouri is the ideal time of year to plant all kinds of things from cool-season vegetables to turf grasses, and especially shrubs, evergreens or deciduous trees. Yet, when it comes to planting, many gardeners only think of the spring. Why is fall such an ideal time to plant? First, the warm soil in the fall helps encourage root growth. The roots continue to grow through our mild winters becoming well established by the spring. This makes fall plantings much better equipped to handle our heat and drought once summer finally arrives. In addition, our fall and spring rains help do the work in establishing your plants, which reduces the care responsibilities and increases your success rate. There are also fewer pests and disease problems to attack your plant while it is young.

When fall arrives, I want to see bright oranges, vibrant yellows, and fiery reds. These fall colors bring life back to our landscapes after the summer sun has faded most of the blooms. The natural turning of leaves into their disguised color of glory brings a new energy to our yards and awakens our senses. Right now, you can find selections of trees and shrubs especially bred for fall color. There is no reason to have humdrum containers and flowerbeds during fall when there are Garden Mums and Fall/Winter Pansies to replace our burnt out summer annuals. Fall cool season plants known as Fall Magic are also great additions to beautiful fall containers, and we have a great selection.

Fall bulbs are another planting option you should consider at this time. You will find the best selection now, and you have until Christmas to get them into the ground for spring blooming. Bulbs need 10 weeks of cold weather to create their magnificent show. Many varieties and colors are popping up in this category of plants as well. I will talk more about bulbs in the October article. Enjoy the cool crisp air, and I will …...See you in the Garden.

Sandi Hillermann McDonald

Garden Solutions - August 2012

            August………besides vacations, other activities that will pull you away from your list of gardening duties are fairs, festivals, family outings, and back to school preparations.  It really is a good thing that August is a slow month for working in your landscape.

            Your main tasks for this month begin with the letter W.  Weeding and watering.  Both tasks are pretty self-explanatory.  However, I feel the need to explain them to some extent. It is important to stay on top of the weeds.  If you let them get ahead of you and they go to seed, you are going to have hundreds more to deal with this fall and next spring.  Spraying weeds in landscape beds with an herbicide such as Roundup is one of the easiest ways to rid of weeds.    When using herbicides be sure to read and follow all label directions thoroughly.  They are written for your protection.  Generally, it is best to pull weeds that are growing in and immediately around your desirable plants, and spray those that are “in the open”. 

            As far as watering goes, it has been an extremely tough moisture year, so slow deep watering at the base of desirable trees and shrubs on a weekly basis is very important. Try to eliminate drought stress on your plants.  Weak plants open up avenues for disease and insects to overcome.  The drought we are experiencing actually goes back to spring of 2011.  Do you remember the very wet and cool spring of 2011?  Boy, I do.  Well we went into a dry summer, than a dry fall, and then we essentially had no snow this past winter and than a very dry spring of 2012.  Our water table is very low.  So please take care of your desirable plants with slow soaking waterings.  If you have questions, do not hesitate to give us a call.

            Bugs, they really bug me, and some of them can really mess up your plants.  Before you grab that bottle of insecticide and run out and spray every bug in sight, it is important that you identify the bug that is bugging you.  Most insecticides can’t tell the difference between a beneficial insect like a honey bee and the destructive spider mite.  Therefore, it is important that you know what bug you are trying to kill and the best method to do it.  If you collect some samples of your bug to bring in to be identified, please put them in a Ziploc bag and seal it before bringing it in.  Once we ID your pest, we can tell you the best way to control it.

            Mowing the lawn is another task that continues in August.  Due to the usually hot and dry conditions that are the norm in August, you may be able to space your mowings further apart.  It is also beneficial to let the grass grow longer to help shade the roots. 

            If you are thinking about a new addition to your landscape this fall, now is the time to talk to your favorite landscape designer.  Your designer can discuss your needs with you, design the changes or new additions, and get you on the schedule for a fall installation.

            This spring if you tried your hand at seasonal vegetable or square foot gardening, here are a few ways you can enjoy a fall garden.  Carry Tomatoes, Peppers and Basil over in your fall garden.  Direct sow Beets, Radishes, Peas, and Spinach now where other spring crops such as Broccoli and Cauliflower have come and gone for this year.  It is best to replant nursery starts of Broccoli and Cauliflower, and not sow them from seed this time of year.

            Last but not least, take care of yourself.  In the heat that is referred to as August, it is easy to over exert yourself.  Drink plenty of fluids and rest in the shade as needed.

See you next month……….in the garden

Sandi Hillermann McDonald

Garden Solutions - July 2012

Summer is officially here, so get out and soak up some of that vitamin D. The sun is not just good for plants, but we need it too! So now the tip for the month of July—Sit Back and Relax!! For many of us, the 4th of July date marks the beginning of the entertainment season. And what a season it is! We plan, we phone, we shop, we decorate, we mow, we clean, we check supplies, we shop again, we cook, we carry lawn chairs and coolers outside, and we fret about the weather. When the guests arrive, it all starts over. Pouring, serving, clearing, fetching, and recycling can fill hours, if we let them. So part of the planning needs to include ways to have some time for you to sit back and enjoy your party, too. Maybe an e-mail sent to everyone with one push of the button can replace two hours of phone calls. Making your event a potluck will eliminate much of the shopping and cooking. Be sure to have everyone bring their own beverages, table service and lawn chairs. And finally, don’t mow. Your lawn will do better with foot traffic if it is left a little bit longer. With all that settled, all that’s left for you to do is enjoy a good time! Now that we have talked about having parties and enjoying your yard and garden at home, let’s get down to other tasks at hand for July.

It’s not too late to plant shrubs, perennials and annual flowers, but you will need to give them a little TLC for the summer. If you haven’t been pinching back your garden mums all summer, cut them back by half as soon as possible and feed them. This task shouldn’t be done much after the 4th of July. This will help them to grow bushier and bloom in the fall when anticipated until Thanksgiving for late blooming varieties. Avoid applying weed killers, insecticides, fungicides and fertilizers to plants when the temperatures are above 90 degrees. Spray treatments early in the morning when temperatures are below 85.

 

If Japanese beetles are attacking your plants, you have several options for controlling them, from handpicking (not my favorite) to trapping (the safest) or spraying them. Japanese beetle traps are readily available and do a fantastic job of eradicating the problem naturally. Remove infected leaves from roses and pick up fallen leaves. Continue fungicidal sprays as needed on these beauties. Keep deadheading spent annual and perennial flowers for continued bloom. Keep weeds from making seeds now. This will mean fewer weeds next year.

Hot, dry weather is ideal for spider mite development. Damage may be present even before the webs are noticed. With spider mite damage, leaves may be speckled above and yellowed below. Evergreen needles appear dull gray-green to yellow to brown. Spray with permethrin to control this critter. Sweet corn is ripe when the silks turn brown. Blossom-end rot occurs on tomato and peppers when soil moisture is uneven and the calcium level in the soil is not right. Liming the garden will help these issues next year.

Water conservation is of the utmost importance during our dry summer months. These following simple tips can save time and money. Water where it counts, water at the roots, not the leaves. Drip irrigation systems in landscape beds do wonders for water conservation. Drip irrigation systems are easy for the homeowner to install. Trees and shrubs would also benefit from a deep root watering this time of year. You can use a deep root feeder (without the fertilizer) for this purpose. Water them around the drip line of the tree for best success. Doing this every 2-3 weeks will keep your trees stress free. Water frequently enough to prevent wilting. When you mow your grass, cut it less frequently and at a higher level. Cutting it short promotes growth, and growth promotes water consumption. Longer grass blades shade the soil and conserve moisture. Plant drought tolerant, native plants where possible. Native plants are becoming more readily available in nursery settings.

Check your plant containers daily for water. Put your finger at least one inch down in the soil, if it is dry, water thoroughly. Hanging baskets will need a drink at least once a day, sometimes even twice a day, depending on the weather. Provide water in the garden for birds during dry weather and they will repay you with wonderful antics and bird song. Enjoy nature and your gardens this summer. You won’t regret it.

See you in the Garden,
Sandi Hillermann McDonald