Jesse Jenkins

Organic Insecticide: Insecticidal Soap is based on potassium fatty acids and is used to control many plant pests. Because insecticidal soap only works on direct contact with the pests, it is important to thoroughly spray the entire area of the plant where you see the pests. It is used to kill aphids, scales, whitefly, mealybugs and spider mites.

Some plants can be sensitive to it, so be sure and read the label before spraying. (You should spray a small part of the plant, wait a couple of days to see if there is any reaction before you spray the entire plant.) It also cannot be sprayed when the temperatures are above 90 degrees. I usually recommend to spray in the early evening once the plants are in the shade. This gives them all night to dry before the sun hits them the next day. The same is true for Neem Oil. It works to kill and repel a wide variety of insects.

It also can be used as a fungicide and miticide. Neem Oil is not known to be harmful to mammals, birds, earthworms or some beneficial insects such as butterflies, honeybees and ladybugs if it is not concentrated directly into their area of habitat or on their food source. Spinosad is another insecticide used to kill borers, bagworms, caterpillars, leafminers, thrips, fleas , scales and beetles to name a few.

It is also available in a granular bait form to kill fire ants. And lastly Diatomaceaous Earth. This is a powder used to scratch the exoskeleton of insects causing them to dehydrate and die. Works on roaches, fleas, pill bugs, ants and more. Depending on what insects you are trying to control, we can help you find the best product to meet your needs.

-DeAnna

Back in the late 70’s, when we first opened our Airline store, we met Henry. He was strikingly handsome, riding his beautiful horse, and had an amazingly warm and wonderful smile. And still does as shown in this picture taken in May!
Henry, upon returning from the Vietnam War in the late 60’s, joined his dad, Connie Brooks, in the family landscape and maintenance business. When he was trained and ready to go out on his own, his dad gave him a lawn mower, and edger (remember them?), a few rakes and brooms. And for the last 40+ years, Henry has been making Corpus Christi beautiful. He has long lasting relationships with many multi-generational families in our city. Henry compares his job as a landscaper to that of an artist, creating art outdoors by planting trees, shrubs and flowers, and then keeping his work looking good with regular care.
Henry’s hobby is training and racing quarter horses – his own horses. He’s raced in Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma. And that gets back to when I first met him in our parking lot, a long time ago.
When I saw him today at our Alameda store, he asked me if I was working hard or hardly working. I said of course I am working hard, that it seems we are both still working hard. His comment was, “Why would I sit at home doing nothing when I could be out taking care of my customers and making gardens prettier?” I agree! Thank you Henry, for your kind, gentle spirit, your beautiful warm smile, and our decades long friendship.

-Sally

I recently moved into a new house, and after living in apartments for years, I was so excited to have a real garden! Our new home had green plants, but only of the weed variety. I figured since I help people plan their gardens all day here at the nursery that it would be a snap to design my new garden and install it. I was wrong. So wrong. As soon as I walked into Gill’s to get all my supplies, my thoughts on what plants to get flew out the window! After walking around for a while I remembered a customer who came in the day before who had a blank space in their garden too. So I decided to treat myself like I would a customer, and it all became clear! So if you have a new space to plan, here’s my advice.

Decide on a color palette or a style of garden that you want. It’ll help keep your mind focused as you walk through the store.
Check your soil. As soon as we started digging we discovered that our house is firmly situated in pure clay. So we had to come back and get Expanded Shale, Landscaper’s Mix and Cotton Burr Compost to amend it.
If you’re working on a project with somebody take a few minutes to just walk around the store and point out what you like. It will not only inspire you, but it’ll help you both decide what will make you happy.
Measure, measure, measure! It’s so important to have a clear idea of the size space you’re working with, because there is nothing worse than coming home with too many plants or too few.
Still flummoxed? Try breaking down the area into smaller chunks. Do one bed at a time, or just decide on one focal plant. As you work on a more specific goal, it will get easier to make progress.

After a lot of sweat and cursing at clay (which unfortunately doesn’t help break it up), we finished our front beds next to the house. Now all we have left is the entire backyard. It’ll keep us busy at least!

-Marta

We’ve covered organic fertilizers and organic insecticides. This week we will talk about organic fungicides. Serenade Garden Disease Control can be used on roses, vegetables, fruits, flowering plants, trees, shrubs and lawns. Use prior to disease development or at the first sign of foliar disease infection. Serenade prevents and controls black spot, leaf spot, powdery mildew, anthracnose, gray mold, scab and early blight. With all the recent rains black spot and powdery mildew are a problem, especially on roses. Actinovate and Actino-iron are also organic fungicides used for soil borne pl ant root rot and damping off fungi. Can be used to control diseases on vegetables, roses, trees, shrubs and lawns. It is a must for the control of phytophthera fungus which kills periwinkles. Actino-iron can be worked into the soil prior to planting or Actinovate can be mixed with water and sprayed or drenched around your flowers to prevent disease after planting and through the growing season. Horticultural Cornmeal is another natural substance that stimulates beneficial microorganisms to feed on pathogens such as brown patch in St. Augustine, damping off in seedlings, phytophthera and other fungal diseases. It also helps to build the soil. Remember all diseases are easier to prevent than to cure. Isn’t there an old saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.

-DeAnna

As our days get hotter, your plants might start drooping during the middle of the day. Now, this could be caused by one of two things. Either it’s very dry, and needs to be watered immediately, OR it is in heat wilt, and needs to be left alone! Some plants wilt during the middle of the day to conserve energy, and once it cools down or the sun sets, they pop right back up and look gorgeous. So before you grab your water hose and soak everything that’s wilting, check the soil. If it’s moist or if the pot is heavy, leave the plant alone (it’s just being dramatic)!

Marta

Here is a couple of natural products to kill those weeds without using pesticides. Try Vinegar to kill those unwanted weeds in flowerbeds and cracks of the sidewalk or driveway. The vinegar at the grocery store is usually 5%. You will need 20% vinegar (acetic acid ) to kill weeds effectively. We carry Natures Guide 20% Vinegar Weed Control in a Ready to Use spray bottle and also by the gallon. It is applied undiluted to unwanted weeds in flowerbeds and vegetable gardens. It can also be used in the lawn for weed control, but remember it is non-selective therefore it kills everything, including your lawn grass. For waxy leaves you may want to add a squirt of dish soap as a surfactant to help it stick to the leaf surface. Give it several days to work and all the weeds are dead. We also carry Molasses. Did you know molasses controls nutsedge? Drench problem spots with Liquid Horticultural Molasses at ¼ to ½ cup per gallon of water. Start with about a gallon of drench per 9-10 sq. ft. This simple technique fires up the microbes in the soil and the nutsedge simply fades away. It takes a while to work and requires at least 2-3 applications. As opposed to toxic chemicals, it makes the soil healthier with every application. It also stops the development of the nodes or nutlets underground.

-Deanna

I’ve always known Cherry Green is an avid gardener. Year round, no matter how hot or cold it is, she remains a gardener. Whenever I see her about town, she asks if we have this or that, and most of the time it’s not your ordinary ligustrum or Asian jasmine. A few weeks ago, she was in the store looking for pink gaura, one of my favorites, but again, not a typical Corpus Christi landscape plant. In conversation, I asked if I could come tour her garden. What a treat!

Cherry & her husband Hix moved from the Dallas area in their 20’s to a neighborhood off Ocean Drive and have been there ever since. Cherry immediately went to work designing the garden and Hix assisted her in creating her dream landscape. As with many, their original plant choices leaned toward the East Texas varieties. Through trial and error, and a few hot and humid summers, they’ve migrated to more natives, more drought tolerant, hardier plants. Interestingly, when she acquires a new plant, she enters it in her data base by common and scientific name. In addition, she photographs her succulents since sometimes they are difficult to differentiate. I also think that could be a great way to record plant performance, bloom cycles, etc…

Cherry & Hix’s garden is truly an amazing collection of plant species. Their front yard is anchored with oaks and Natchez crape myrtles; beds are filled with bird of paradise, foxtail fern, Red Wave hibiscus, jasmines, chrysanthemums, Japanese yew, yellow plumbago and more. Their side yard includes Drift roses, Mexican oregano, exotic day lilies including Black Ambrosia & King’s Point, plumeria, hamelia, a way cool groundcover periwinkle, hibiscus and a great collection of succulents in pots by the side entrance to their home. Their back yard has beautiful mesquites, one with night blooming cereus growing up it. There are crape myrtles, a mountain laurel and a grapefruit, specimen plumeria, durantas, firecracker plant, irises, altheas, pride of Barbados, porter weed, night blooming jasmine, Indian carnation, milkweed, a beautiful specimen white bird of paradise, beautiful blooming gomphrena and a nice assortment of vines on their back and side fence. Again, they have a great collection of succulents in an interesting collection of containers. She jokes that her lawn is disappearing as her garden beds get larger.

Cherry has no qualms, when a plant becomes too big in its current location, to move it or dispose of it. She’s all about trial and error. A few days before our visit, she dug up an iris that had gotten too large for its space, divided it, and was readying them for planting in a more appropriate spot.

I was most entertained by where Cherry has acquired her plants. I’m proud to say many of her plants have come from Gill’s, but I’m not sure it’s a majority. It seems many of her plants have been given to her by friends and family. Gloria Swantner has shared many, as well as B.J. Kershaw, John McKeever, Laurie Mintz, our dear John Anderson, Judy Henderson and on and on. Cherry has purchased plants from our South Texas Botanical Gardens as well as other non-profit gardens, taken a few clippings here and there from hotels (for instance, one of our favorites on Congress Street in Austin). Her daughter, Lacy, is always scouting for her mom in her travels. Bonnie Cohen even brought a suitcase of cuttings from her mom’s garden in East Hampton, New York. I’m sure these plants, given to her by friends and family, hold a special place in her heart. And you can be sure, Cherry has reciprocated in plant giving!

Cherry joked, toward the end of our visit, that she tries to garden the two days prior to trash pick-up so her neighbors don’t have to look at her yard debris for too long. I feel sure they are grateful to have her in the neighborhood (anyone would with such a beautiful landscape), as I am to have her as a friend and a member of our gardening community. Thank you Cherry!

-Sally

When you set them up correctly, they are the easiest things to take care of because they take care of themselves. But before we get into the nitty gritty of terrariums, let’s go over some basics. There are two kinds of terrariums, open and closed. Open terrariums are ones without lids, or that have holes. These allow new air into the container, and often need more care because of the evaporation effect. Closed terrariums are the ones you might have studied in school. They are a closed system, and therefore have the capabilities of watering themselves, and give that whole ‘ecosystem-in-a-jar’ look. Either way, terrariums need the right start, otherwise they’re just a pain to deal with. Open terrariums are best for succulents or ‘dry’ plants, while closed terrariums are great for water-loving ones. Now, substrate is key when you build up your terrarium! It’s not just dirt, but a lasagna of charcoal, bark, soil, and gravel. Charcoal is something that I feel not enough people utilize in terrariums, and it might just be the most important. In a terrarium (especially a closed one), you have a cycle of water going down into the soil, settling down in the bottom, evaporating up to the lid, and then condensing and dripping back down onto the soil. But if you don’t have charcoal, the water doesn’t stay fresh. Charcoal is like your filter, so put it at the bottom of the terrarium, followed by a thin layer of bark, and a thicker layer of soil. After your lasagna is ready, put your plants in place, and after arranging everything put a top layer of wet sheet moss or even live moss. The wet moss is your supply of water for the terrarium, so only add more water if you notice there isn’t condensation. Be careful not to overwater! Fill in bare spots with gravel to keep everything in place. Pinch back your plants when necessary, and watch the cycle of nature do its thing. It’s that easy. If you’ve never owned a terrarium before, or want to buy all the products necessary but don’t want huge bags of charcoal and orchid bark, then try our Terrarium Kits. They have everything you need, and come with really great detailed instructions.

-Marta

Jesse Jenkins

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