Bugs

We love the rain, but so do the skeeters. We have everything you need to repel and kill them. Mosquito Beater Liquid Hose-end can be sprayed across the lawn, shrubs and anywhere else they may hide. We also have Mosquito Dunks and Mosquito Bits for standing water in birdbaths, saucers, puddles or even old tires to kill their larvae organically. We have Mosquito Beater Granules which are essential plant oils on a flake to repel them. It is Lemon grass oil, Citronella oil, Garlic, Geranium oil and Cedar oil, so it smells really nice. And don’t forget our Skeeter Eggs that you hang on the porch or patio. They hold Citronella oil in a porous egg to repel for 200 sq. ft. Having a party or just want to enjoy the cool evenings outdoors. Come see us and we will get you what you need.

-DeAnna

Whether you call it Texas Tarragon, Mexican Mint Marigold, or Tagetes lucida, I call it an absolute beauty for fragrance, flavor, and color every South Texas Autumn! Known for its liquorish anise flavor, it makes the perfect sub for true tarragon that struggles to grow in our area. I love it just as much for the golden flowers that attract many butterflies and honey bees. Their bloom is best and most showy during the Fall season. Trim them early spring to keep tidy. Full to part sun average soil and water. No bugs or diseases. They are a breath of fresh sweet air every morning in my courtyard.

-Debbie

Remember to rotate your crops from last season if possible. Also do not crowd your plants. Insects and disease love places that are overcrowded with no air circulation. Spacing your plants will limit the areas for the bugs to hide.

There are many organic options to keep insects and disease under control. For insects, use Insecticidal Soap for soft-bodied bugs, Spinosad for beetles, caterpillars, and leafminer. To prevent powdery mildew on curcurbits and cole crops, use Serenade or Neem Oil, when it comes to disease, it is always easier to prevent than to cure. Also, mulching the garden with Hardwood Mulch or Pine Straw will keep fungal spores from splashing up onto the plants.

Fall can be the best season for growing vegetables due to the cooler weather and more rainfall, unlike the spring garden where we are heading into the hottest season. So plant now, space things out, keep the garden weed free, fertilize regularly and be a good bug scout. And remember, only spray insecticides if necessary. We do not want to kill the bees or other pollinators in the garden.

-DeAnna

After all the spring rains giving us lush green lawns, it sure didn’t take long for the dog days of summer to take its toll on some. We are diagnosing lots of chinch bugs and grub worm damage. James has a couple of videos on our website and You Tube about lawns. Be sure to check those out to help you diagnose your problems. You can also bring in a sample for us to look at. Use a shovel and dig us up a shovel width square of grass with the soil attached. You will be able to take the sample back home and put it back in the hole you dug. We will help diagnose your problem and get you the best solution to fix it. Spreading Natures Blend Compost over the area will help it to recover quicker. Continue with your once a week slow and deep watering through September and October, but after that, we should be able to cut back to every other week due to shorter days and cooler temperatures and hopefully more rainfall.

Some of you remember Stuart as an infant in his baby carrier, plopped on the sales counter at our Airline store while I ran the cash register. Some of you remember his working in your garden or helping you select your Christmas tree or coming to your home with James on a house call. We laugh out loud when we recall Stuart, around 10 at the time, diagnosing chinch bugs in a customer’s yard. He clearly was paying attention to his dad. And then there was the time, at about the same age, when he suggested that we start staying open 24 hours a day, allowing inventory to be stocked while customers were asleep! We haven’t implemented his system, but we recognize it has merit. As a young boy, Stuart travelled with us on tours of plant growers around Texas. James, Stuart and I would jump in the grower’s vehicle and drive the fields, trying to find the best plants for our garden center. James and I devised a system for grading plants, A+ being the best to F being the worst, all recorded on paper, but never revealed to our salesperson. On one of these trips, Stuart announced to the group that he thought the dwarf pittosporum was a C grade. We covered up his comment as best we could, but laughed later. Bottom line, Stuart lived Gill Landscape Nursery from a very early age.

Stuart has always been adventurous. I’m embarrassed to say friends would report seeing him on his bike, all over Corpus Christi. He loved exploring. He loved seeing other neighborhoods. He loved seeing the way others lived. His earliest out-of-town adventures included fishing with his brother Trevor at his uncle Lanny’s “Baja Laguna”, kayaking on Texas rivers, exploring around my parents’ cabin in Colorado, camping with his dad, brother and grandmother on Matagorda Island, exploring South Texas brush in Ingleside, and many, many trips to the beach with his dad. As he got older, he worked to travel, often alone. Between school and jobs he travelled to countries in Europe, Central and South America. On one of his surf trips with his dad to Ecuador, he met two women from Seattle. After getting to know Stuart, they recommended he move to Seattle. They thought he would like it. He had finished his degree at the University of Texas and was working in Napa, California.

Stuart packed his bags and moved to Seattle. He started working in the landscape industry, and then moved into carpentry. Stuart has always had a great appreciation for fine craftsmanship. He found good people to work with, he started from the bottom learning the trade, and eventually began purchasing his own tools, the best he could find. He now works with Ambrose Construction, managing beautiful residential remodels and additions.

Stuart met Anne in February of 2013. She hadn’t been in Seattle long. They found they had a lot in common. They both love good food and literature; they both love the outdoors and adventure. Plus she’s very pretty with beautiful blue eyes. Anne also has travelled to many foreign destinations with her parents and lived in Indonesia. Anne works in a public relations firm, representing independent restaurants in Seattle. She is a skier, runner & yoga instructor. She is kind, gentle and smart, she loves Stuart, and she’s about to become our daughter-in-law!

So…that’s an update on our son, Stuart. You know, the day he was born, James’ and my lives changed forever. He has truly been a joy for us, someone who is always on our minds, someone with whom we look forward to spending time with. Even though Stuart doesn’t live in Corpus Christi anymore, he is still a part of Gill’s. He knows and loves our Gill family. He continues to help us think through work challenges. He is always there to celebrate our successes.

One more thing… Anne and Stuart are doing a bike tour of Indonesia for their honeymoon. Happy, Happy!

-Sally

It seems everywhere I turn I see bugs. Chinch bugs in the grass, worms eating bougainvilleas, scale on irises and lilies, mealy bugs on tropicals. To spray, or not to spray? That is the question. We need to raise our tolerance of what is acceptable in our landscapes. A few bugs here or there or a little plant damage is all o.k. Did you know that only about 5% of insects are bad? Many insects are even beneficial. This fact is the reason you must decide whether or not to spray. Lots of times nature will take care of itself if you wait a few days. Keep your plants as healthy as possible, and you will not have many insect or disease problems.

First, make sure you have the right plant in the right place, proper sun exposure, correct spacing of plants to insure air circulation, regular feeding, mulched beds, watering. All of these things reduce stress and result in perfect growing conditions for your plants keeping them happy and healthy. We call it IPM or Integrated Pest Management. If you do determine you need to treat a problem insect, start with the least toxic approach.

Insects and disease go for the weak and stressed plants first.
A few aphids can be controlled with a blast of water.
A cluster of mealybugs on the tips of plants can be remedied by pruning and discarding the area.
Using Insecticidal Soap, Neem Oil, or Thuricide sprayed on plants with insects is your next approach.
Never spray everything just because one plant has a problem.

So look around your yard; see what’s happening. If you’re not sure whether you have a beneficial or a problem insect, just put a sample in a ziplock bag and bring it to us. We will help identify the bug and tell you if you need a control solution.

-Deanna

(DeAnna’s truck – always there, at 6:30am!)

In a few weeks we’ll be closing the stores early on a Saturday to have a pool party at our home to celebrate our Gill’s nursery & landscape staff. We recognize those who have been with Gill’s 1 year, 5 years, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 years. This year we’re celebrating DeAnna’s, our Alameda store manager, 30th year with Gill’s!

DeAnna Baumgartner is a local girl, graduating from Flour Bluff High School. Upon graduation, she played basketball for McLennon Community College and Baylor University, qualifying for the 1980 Summer Olympic Team. She joined us in 1984, and became a Texas Certified Nursery Professional in 1986.

In the fall of 1986, James started thinking we needed a small garden center in central Corpus Christi for the spring season since our Airline location was so far from town. I was pregnant with our second son, Trevor, and honestly wasn’t too keen on the idea. James convinced me it was just for five months, February through June, and then we would go back to a single store operation. DeAnna was our first choice to manage our little temporary store. She accepted, and we all know the rest of the story; she’s been the number one lady in charge of Gill’s Alameda for 28 years!

DeAnna gets to her store around 6:30 in the morning, many times has swept the nursery, done some spot watering and maybe even unloaded a truck or two before the doors open at 8 a.m. DeAnna is a hands-on manager. She works alongside anyone and everyone who needs a helping hand. She hires, she trains, she motivates, she brings treats and sometimes she’s been known to do a little counseling, to help staff through various life challenges. DeAnna is just as close to many of her customers as she is to her staff. She calls David Dunn her week-end boyfriend, I think because he’s there every Saturday. Billy Johnson used to bring her donuts EVERY Saturday morning. I’ve heard of customers calling ahead, placing their order, and DeAnna running to their car with their garden supplies.

DeAnna took it upon herself many years ago to learn not only everything she could about plants that do well in our area, but also how to take care of them. She studied how to enrich the soil, which fertilizers plants responded best to, what bugs get on them and what insecticides could be used on them with the least toxicity, everything to help her customers be successful with gardening. When DeAnna attended national trade shows, she was the first to ask if a label could be changed to better describe its benefits. She shared what her customers needed with the manufacturers and they listened. A year or two later, what she asked for would be on our shelves. Because DeAnna stays current to the challenges we are faced with in our gardens, our local extension agents call on her for advice and information.

As part of her volunteer Master Gardener role, in 2006 DeAnna became the Nueces County “Learning To Grow” coordinator, building vegetable gardens in elementary schools from Agua Dulce to Port Aransas. She has planned and assisted with the installation of over 300 vegetable gardens to date, including every CCISD elementary, middle and high school, private schools, the Mother Theresa Shelter, La Mirada Housing Project and the Food Bank of Corpus Christi. Her goal is to open young peoples’ eyes to the wonder of gardening and the importance of healthy eating. She continues to build gardens each new season, adding to her list private schools, church schools and non-profits. In the fall and spring of each year, seed and seedlings are delivered to our Alameda store. From there, she along with other Master Gardeners organize and pack product to go to each of the participating gardens. In 2013, DeAnna was awarded 2nd place State of Texas “Master Gardener Of The Year” for her contributions to the “Learn To Grow” program in our area.

In 2010 DeAnna helped to resurrect the Ray High School Greenhouse for the science classes and the botany club, which has become an award winning project. The Master Gardener program this year awarded their first scholarship to a Ray High School student for their hard work and dedication to horticulture.

On her days off, when not working with the Master Gardeners, she enjoys vegetable and container gardening in her own back yard (she does know a great place to get plants!) as well as spending time with her husband, Clint Knight, and very best friend, Carol Krank, of the South Texas Botanical Gardens and Nature Center. The girls celebrate each week with 3 M’s, Mexican food, margaritas and movies.

James and I admire DeAnna for her leadership and product knowledge. We’re thankful for her commitment to learning and sharing her garden knowledge, for providing a safe and good place for our community to work and shop and we’re thankful for her commitment to quality. She cares about her customers and their gardening success. Thank you DeAnna!

-Sally

With the flush of tender new growth on plants comes the first hatching of Spring insects. Aphids are usually the first we see and then lots of caterpillars eating the tender leaves. Mother Nature has set out the buffet for all insects to feast on. Pulling out the poison should never be the first line of defense. A few insects here or there does not warrant treating. Many beneficial insects are also out in the Spring looking to feast on all the bad bugs. So just look around and keep an eye on where you may have a problem and see if the good bugs take care of the bad bugs. If not, then try the least toxic approach first. Maybe releasing a few ladybugs in the landscape or a good blast of water to wash away the insects is all you need to do.

image c/o Gilles San Martin

-DeAnna

Bugs

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