Fertilizing the Grass

During the summer, it is very important that you pay a little bit of attention to your lawn.  Depending on your climate, you might have to do a little more than someone else.  By now, you should have already done at least 2 different applications on the lawn.  In February/March you should have done a pre-emergent to prevent weeds.  In April/May you should have been doing weed killing.  Now in June/July it is time to give the lawn some good food to eat.

Again, it depends on your climate and your type of grass, but if you have a fescue, bluegrass, Bermuda, or Zoysia lawn, than I recommend using a high nitrogen lawn food fertilizer.  Remember we talked about in a previous blog “What do all those numbers mean on the Fertilizer bag?” When it comes to fertilizer, I like using the granular form of it so you can get a slow release product that will continuously feed for awhile.  It installs very easily with any type of spreader.  Be careful not to let piles of it fall on the ground in one spot.  Too much fertilizer will kill the grass and not let it recover for months, up to a year.

Just remember, Nitrogen is great for the green up and growth of the plant.  Nitrogen leaches from the soil very quickly and has to be replaced often.  Make sure and water in the lawn real good for a couple of days after application.

Happy Grass

Don't let this happen to your tree!

A Bradford Pear is a beautiful, self pruning tree that was made from a regular pear tree.  A man literally took the trunk of the pear tree and attached the new thornless, fruitless, part of the tree on the top.  They call it grafting.  What happens with the Bradford Pear tree is the branches grow extremely fast, making them very weak.  The trunk of the tree is slower growing, and when they grafted the new part on, they usually put three main branches going up off the trunk.  That was recipe for failure and we didn’t know it.   Those three branches out grew the trunk strength and next thing we knew, one of the three branches could not withstand a strong wind and down it went.  Then your tree looked very lopsided.

They have recently developed alternatives to the Bradford Pear, and came up with the Callery Pear, and the Cleveland Pear.   They all look identical, but they have slowed the growth of the branches in order to allow the whole tree to grow uniformly in size.  Great alternatives if you still want to plant a pear tree for the blooms in the spring.

A trick that professional landscapers have figured out is if a pear tree is pruned about every 3-5 years, it will never break and always look great.  The pruning needs to be done during the dormant season of the tree.  That would mean it needs to be done between Christmas and February.  Cutting the main branches about 6 ft. from the trunk and cutting all the branches around in a circular form all the way around the tree is all that needs to be done.  It can easily be done standing on a short ladder.  The worst part of pruning this tree is cleaning up the mess afterward.  The following spring you will need to plan to hand prune the lower branches as it puts off new growth, just to help you mow under it and to encourage up growth instead of down growth.

Proper pruning will definitely extend the life of your tree and keep the wife happy because the tree won’t be lopsided!  Just know that the first season after pruning, the tree is in recovery mode.  It will not be the perfect teardrop shaped tree until late in the season.  The second year after pruning, no one will ever know that you touched the tree.

Happy Pruning

Varieties of Hostas

Hosta is a beautiful foliage plant that gives you a bloom in the summer time.  There are more than one hundred varieties of Hosta that are of different shapes, sizes and color variation.  The bloom is a really tall stalk with little purple trumpet shaped blooms on the end.  Hosta is considered a bulb type plant.  It is a perennial which means it comes back year after year.  By the book, it states that a hosta is a shade plant.  I agree, because in the shade, the plant will hold good color and not have many problems.  But, my mom puts hers in the full sun and the plants get absolutely huge!  The only down fall to full sun is the foliage will get sun burned in the heat of the summer.  The leaf edges will turn brown and shrivel a little because of the stress, but the plant just thrives in the sun.  So you can make your own decision about sun or shade, in my opinion.

If you are planting a hosta that is been rooted in a pot, transplanting it to your yard is no big deal.  The plant probably won’t even know that is moved.  Even planting it in the winter is fun, because with no foliage, you are planting a dirt and root ball.   Try it sometime just to see what it is like to plant dirt!

If you are wanting to divide an existing clump of hosta, whether it be from your own house, or someone else’s yard, you want to know a couple of things.  I say it is easier to divide them in the summer because you can see each ‘eye’ and can cut the roots according to how big of a plant you are wanting to remove.  Just know that when you replant the division, the plant will probably not fully recover and look good the same season.  It will need to go through the winter (its dormant season) and develop a strong root system and will be an awesome new plant next year.  When I divided my mom’s clumps years ago, I was able to get about 150 new plants from just 4 of her clumps of hosta.  Dividing them in the winter is just more difficult because you do not have the foliage to judge your cuts by.

Happy Dividing

Natural Shading of a house in Summertime

What is the difference between an evergreen and a deciduous tree?

This is a very easy question that is very easily confused by many people.  I get to talking with them and say that the maple tree is deciduous and they ask what that means.  It is very important to know what you are getting and where you are putting it to maximize your energy usage in the house.

Deciduous means that the plant will loose it’s leaves in the wintertime.  Sorry Florida, you don’t have too many of these.  Evergreen means that it is green forever (or until it dies, then it goes brown!).  When a tree or plant looses its leaves, it means that the sap is leaving the tree and it is going into its dormant stage.  In other words, it is hibernating.  This is the time that growers can dig them out of the fields and sell them to people for transplant purposes.  Do not transplant deciduous trees in the summertime, they probably will die if you do.

Evergreen means what it says, the plant is always green.  The plant does goes dormant in the cold winter, but it does not drop its needles.  An evergreen plant will rejuvenate itself in mid spring by dropping some of its leaves or needles and putting off new growth.  That is normal and has to happen for the plant to grow.

Why is it important to know which tree to plant where around your house?  Well, if you want to help cool your house in the summer and help warm it in the winter by using the sun, than you want to plant a deciduous tree on the west side of your house.  Why is that? You ask…the answer is easy.  In the summer when the sun is really hot, the tree will have leaves on it and block the sun from hitting your house directly, keeping it cooler.  In the winter when you are wanting the sun to hit your house to warm it up, the leaves are gone and the sun can penetrate through the empty branches with no leaves.  Evergreens make great privacy screens.  If you have an item or a neighbor that you want to make go away visually, then you can plant an evergreen hedge.  Evergreen bushes are important in a landscape design, because you don’t want all sticks in front of your house all winter.

Making your home more energy efficient by using plants is very easy to do and well worth the effort.

Happy Trees