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You may have already done several items on this list, but with all the recent rains they may have been depleted or washed away, therefore another application may be necessary.

Fertilize the lawn, shrubs, trees and tropicals again with Gill Lawn & Garden or Milorganite.
Continue to feed vegetables and herbs with Espoma Plant Tone. Citrus and fruit trees with Espoma Citrus Tone.
Apply pre-emergent again to prevent weeds, Amaze or Dimension.
Spray post-emergent again or as needed to kill existing weeds, Weed b gon or Image. You could also keep the weeds mowed before they go to seed. Most will die with the heat.
Drench Hackberry trees for wooly aphids, bougainvillea for caterpillars, hibiscus and jatropha for mealybugs etc.. with Bayer Protect and Feed to prevent insects for 9 months.
Treat the lawn with Bayer Season Long Grub Control or Beneficial Nematodes.
Watch for Chinch bug activity in the hot dry spots of the lawn near sidewalks and driveways. Spray with Cyonara or Triazicide. For organic control use Spinosad or Diatomaceous Earth.
Treat for fungus. Check the lawn for brown patch. Roses, Crape Myrtles and Gerbera Daisies for powdery mildew and Plumeria for rust. Use F-stop, Serenade or Actinovate for the lawn and Fertilome Systemic , Serenade or Actinovate for plants.
Plant sun or shade loving heat tolerant flowers and tropicals.
Mulch everything including potted plants to prevent weeds and hold moisture for the summer.

-DeAnna

I’ve had quite a few calls recently about back yard drainage problems. The first two solutions people tend to ask about are “French drains” or filling the low spots. These might end up being part of the solution, but are not the best place to start. The best solution is usually a swale, which is a wide, safe, aesthetically acceptable ditch.

When rain starts falling, it has to go somewhere. If you have a low spot in the back yard, that is where it will go. If you fill that low spot, where will it go now? Unfortunately, many people find out that it will now go onto the patio or into the house or garage.

If you place a drain in the bottom of the low spot and attach a 4″ drain pipe set into a ditch that is carefully and continuously sloped out to a lower exit point in front, you can successfully carry water out of the back to the front. But you are limited, first by the diameter of the pipe (and the intensity of recent rains certainly have exceeded the carrying capacity of a 4″ pipe) and secondly, by the intake drain, which will be quickly clogged by leaves, sticks, and other organic debris floating on the flood water and carried to the drain. So the water will eventually drain out, but intense rainfall overwhelming the system may rise and flood the house before the rain lets up. So, a “French drain” may be a good solution for nuisance water standing in the yard, but a bad solution for potential water flooding the house.

A swale has a much higher carrying capacity, and if kept clear of clutter, is unlikely to clog from the organic debris that is carried on the flood water. Start by finding the amount of drop from the back patio or finish floor grade of the room that floods, and the point of the front sidewalk that the water will have to cross to get to the street. Let’s just say there is a 12″ drop. You can find your grades by renting a builder’s level (I use a ZIPLEVEL altimeter), or you can set up a series of stakes, strings, and line levels (not quite as accurate, but better than eye-balling). Then measure the distance that water will have to travel, and let’s just say the distance is 80 feet. You would like to have a 2″ drop from the patio to the lawn, and then have the lawn slope away from the patio at least another 2″ out into the yard to get the water flowing away from the house. That would leave you 8″ of drop to move the water around the side and out to the front sidewalk, so you would dig your swale to drop 1″ every 10 feet until you get to the front sidewalk. Hopefully you do not have concrete poured all the way out to the side fence, or a big oak tree with massive roots in the way. If you see your way clear, then start digging! Remember if you want to re-sod the swale, you will need to dig 1″ deeper than finish grade to allow for the thickness of the sod. If you still have spots holding water that are lower than the swale, now it is safe to fill them so the water flows into the swale and out to the front.

-James

Did you know that soil is a living thing? We have all heard of microbes. The real deal is that without soil microbes, we would all die. The work they do in our soil is incredibly complex but it all boils down to this: microbes eat, thus we eat. Plants are unable to take from the soil the nutrition they need without microbes working in the soil.

Microbes are alive, and must have nutrition to survive, and that nutrition comes from organic matter. As they consume the nutrients they need, microbes create foods like nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, phosphorous, potassium and trace minerals for our plants. It is the microbes that convert the NPK and minerals in the soil into a form our plants can use to grow and produce food and flowers for us. Organic fertilizers feed our soil which is why they are so important to use instead of synthetic fertilizers which have little to no benefit to our soil.

We carry 3 different organic fertilizers for lawns & gardens. Milorganite which is made in Milwaukee from bio waste sewer sludge. It contains 4% iron and is non-burning. It does not have to be watered in immediately, but is activated once watered. Covers 2500 sq. ft. Medina Growin Green is made in Texas from kelp meal, humate, poultry manure, molasses, and green sand. Covers 3000 sq. ft. I usually recommend the one that meets your square footage needs. With all the recent rains and summer upon us, it is time to think about fertilizing the lawn and all your tropical shrubs again.

-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’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

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

We had a wonderful long wet spring, but now the heat has hit and rains have reduced; it’s time to get back to once a week lawn watering. We need to maintain moisture to keep our plants happy and healthy. Watering slow and deep, at least 1 inch a week is good. We recommend using a tuna fish or cat food can with a 1″ mark inside to measure the amount of water your sprinkler puts out.

Place the can in the path of the sprinkler and when water is up to the 1 inch mark, that tells you how long you need to water with your sprinkler type and water pressure in your neighborhood. New plantings will need to be watered more often, so please use a moisture meter to determine their needs.

You should fertilize again now, as heavy spring rains have washed out much of the soil nutrients. Using Milorganite, Medina Growin Green will not encourage excessive growth, but give your yard the nutrients it needs for the long hot days ahead, and organic fertilizers will increase soil ability to capture and retain moisture.

-DeAnna

It likely is not working properly! Just like your mower needs the sparkplug adjusted, oil changed, blade sharpened, and maybe a wheel or starter rope replaced, things will go wrong with your irrigation system. But since it operates while you are in bed, you don’t know what needs fixing. I had not operated my sprinkler system since October last year due to the rains, and before starting it up last week, I did a maintenance check. I have Program D on my controller programmed with no start time , 2 minutes on the first valve, and 1 minute on every other valve. I turn the dial to Program D and manually activate, then go around the yard with a pad and pencil and note all problems. Some newer controllers have a test function built in, very handy.

This is what I found in my yard:

Valve 4 had a head that was grown over with grass, and could not rise up, so all water was just running over the curb (quick fix, just cut around with a serrated knife to sever the grass runners).
Valve 7 had a head with a nozzle twisted 90 degrees (another quick and easy, grab the nozzle with Channelock pliers and twist it back so all water is going on the lawn, instead of half of it into the street).
Valve 12 had a head with a nozzle plugged with a bit of trash, so the head would pop up but no water coming out. This was a much more technical fix, that is, bopping the popped nozzle on the head gently but persuasively with the afore mentioned Channelocks until the trash was ejected and a good flow resumed. If this fails, you will need to keep a hold of the head as the water flow is shut off, screw off the plugged nozzle, and clear it by blowing back through the orifice, or poking a thin wire or broom straw back through it.

I recommend performing this test once a month, to most efficiently utilize water and to avoid discovering sprinkler malfunctions by finding dead patches in your lawn. You should also seasonally adjust your controller from one day a week operation in summer to once every two weeks in fall, and then turn it off for winter, only activating manually every 3 or 4 weeks if there has been no rain, or immediately preceding a forecasted hard freeze event. Replace your program backup battery as needed. Otherwise at any power outage your program, including the current date and time, will be lost and you will need to reprogram. This video from Texas A&M on the Cycle Soak Method describes how to set your timer for best utilization of water, but recognize when he says 5 to 6 minutes run time, that is for spray nozzles, and you will need a longer run time for the valves that supply water to rotors or drip tube.

-James

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