Veggies

February is time to get your spring veggies going! We’ll be stocked with all your fav spring veggies and probably some you’ve never tried before. Join DeAnna Baumgartner and Wyatt Page, Gill’s managers and Texas Certified Nursery Professionals for an informative talk about how to plan and start your veggie garden. They’ll cover everything from what varieties to plant, crop rotation, organic pest prevention, soil health, fertilization, and much more. Free and open to everyone – bring your veggie questions! We’ll be doing some giveaways for Gill gift cards + other fun stuff!

FREE event – No RSVP required.

Click below to watch DeAnna & Wyatt’s preview video:

We can’t wait to see everyone! Stay tuned to our events page and follow us on Facebook and Instagram where we’ll continue to post updates about talks and events. Lots more to come!

Spring has SPRUNG!! Gorgeous weather, rain in the forecast, and the nursery is bursting at the seams with all kinds of blooms! Here are our top must-do’s in the garden this March – time to get planting!

1. Get Your Veggies Going Right Now

We must say…our veggie and herb section is looking mighty good right now! We’ve got tons of different tomatoes, jalapenos, super hot Carolina Reapers, cucumbers, squash, eggplant, asparagus, lemongrass, basil, and lots more ready for your garden. Be sure to get your tomatoes going early this month so they have time to produce before it gets too warm – don’t miss your window. The rest of these can be planted any time this month, but you don’t want to wait much longer. Take advantage of the perfect weather!

2. Fertilize Regularly Starting Now (except for lawns!)

The time to fertilize is when plants are actively growing. That’s when they take up nutrients and get the most benefit from a good feeding. Flowers and veggies are especially heavy feeders because they’re working to produce a bloom and fruit. And you will certainly notice a difference with your landscape plants as well. Apply a good all-purpose organic food like Plant Tone, Medina Growin Green, or Rose Glo once a month for great results. Don’t sprinkle your granular fertilizer right up against the trunk of the plant. Instead, sprinkle at the drip line, aka where rainwater would drip off the outermost leaves. That’s the zone where plants take up the most nutrients. After you’ve applied your granular food, circle back every 2 weeks to supplement with liquid Hasta Gro. Almost everything should be fed starting now, except lawns! Wait to fertilize lawns until late March/early April.

Added bonus: When planting, add a little Bio Tone starter fertilizer to the soil when you backfill. It contains all sorts of beneficial organic matter, including mycorrhizal fungi which help stimulate better root growth. Amazing stuff!

3. Whatever You’re Planting – Add Compost!

Whether you’re starting a veggie garden, planting trees or shrubs, annual flowers, or blooming perennials, add some compost to improve the quality of your native soil. We love our Nature’s Blend or Cotton Burr Compost. Whichever you choose, 1 bag improves about 12 sq ft of clay or sandy soil and gets it ready for planting. That’s a good approximate ratio if you make your own compost too. Adding compost not only improves the consistency of your soil, it adds LIFE! All those beneficial microorganisms help turn your soil into the perfect environment for plant roots.

4. Plant Level – Not Too Deep!

When planting this Spring, DON’T PLANT TOO DEEP! Plant level with the surrounding soil (or even slightly higher) and don’t cover the top of the root ball with soil. Plants have tiny feeder roots on the surface of the root ball that are critical for taking up nutrients and for oxygen exchange. If you bury these surface feeder roots, the plant will suffocate and decline. After you plant, use a moisture meter to be sure you’re getting moisture down into the ground when you water.

5. Invite Pollinator Helpers to Your Garden

Now is an important time to incorporate plants into your garden that attract & feed the birds, bees, butterflies, moths, and other pollinators. They need your help finding food and shelter, and you need their help pollinating your blooming plants, increasing your veggie production, and eating bad bugs. Bees are drawn to most anything with a bloom but some fav’s are native Gregg’s Mist Flower, Esperanza, & Lantana. Butterflies love Salvias and Mexican Flame Vine too. Native plants like Turks Cap and Yaupon Holly produce berries for birds, and Hummingbirds love Duranta, Mexican Honeysuckle, & lots more! Keep in mind that pollinators need help locating these food sources. Think about planting several of the same plant together to help make them more visible to our pollinator friends.

p.s. If you want to learn more about bees, join us here at Gill’s this Saturday, 3/7 at 10am for a special garden talk: Beekeeping & Honey Processing with Hebert Honey!

6. Plant Drought-Tolerant Color!

Q: Can I use far less water and still have a gorgeous landscape bursting with color? A: Absolutely, you can! Given our drought situation, we’re sourcing even more of the tried and true, top-performing plants that don’t require much water once established. Think about a rainbow of Coreopsis (pictured), native Blackfoot Daisy, Mexican Heather, Bulbine, and all the different color Salvias and Lantanas – all very tough and water wise perennials that will carry you through the seasons. Think about creating some areas of interest in the ground or in pots with Gomphrena, Bluebonnets, and Pentas, all of which thrive with little water. Speaking of pots, even bright sweet potato vine is a low-water winner.

Keep in mind – turfgrass lawns are by far the thirstiest part of our landscapes. Now’s a great time to reduce lawn space by creating or expanding planting beds, converting to native groundcover like Frogfruit, or adding pathways and other features. How much of your lawn space are you actually using?

7. Come to Our Nightbloom Event Next Thursday!

Did you know we’re hosting our first-ever night time shopping event at Gill’s next Thursday evening, March 12th?! Stop by and see the nursery lit up at night – it’s magical! Stay tuned to all of our upcoming talks and events here, and follow us on Instagram and Facebook for updates.

p.s. Now you can sip and stroll at Gill’s any time – we’re stocked with cold drinks including beer & wine 🙂

It’s squash and zucchini time y’all! We’re all stocked up with our favorite varieties and now’s the time to get them planted so you can make all kinds of delicious dishes later this spring and summer. If you want amazing production, there are a few key steps to take and things to watch out for. Check out our simple tips + video guide now!

Start with Good Soil

If you’re growing squash and zucchini in containers or raised beds, we highly recommend Gardener’s Magic from Landscaper’s Pride. It’s a nice, loose mix specially formulated for raised beds and it doesn’t need any amendment. Just pour and plant. If you’re growing in the ground in heavy clay or sandy soil, use our beloved Nature’s Blend compost to add nutrients and better structure to your native soil. About 1 bag of compost per 12 square feet of bed space, or the rough equivalent if you’re making your own compost.

Summer Squash Varieties Don’t Need a Trellis

We carry yellow crookneck squash, yellow straightneck squash, 8-ball zucchini, and regular zucchini. All of these are summer bush-type squash varieties that don’t need a trellis to climb on like some other winter squash varieties and cucumbers do. Just plant them about 3 feet apart so they have plenty of space to grow to their mature size and produce more fruit.

Feed, Feed, Feed!

Squashes are very heavy feeders. If you don’t fertilize regularly, you won’t get a good harvest. Use our tried and true method: Medina Growin Green on the 1st of the month, then liquid Hasta Gro on the 15th. Set these reminders/alarms in your phone!

Encourage Cross-Pollination

Fertilizing regularly also ensures that you’ll get plenty of flowers. Squashes produce both male and female flowers on the same plant. The male flowers are just a flower on a stem, while the female flowers have a tiny squash right behind the flower. In order for that fruit to set (grow), the male and female flowers must cross-pollinate. If you plant other bee-attracting plants around your garden, the bees will take care of this cross-pollination for you. If you don’t have many bees, you can take a small paintbrush or Q-tip and move pollen between the male and female flowers yourself.

Watch Out for 3 Main Problems

Keep organic spinosad soap handy to take care of all 3 of the main issues you might see on your squashes: Borer insects (pictured), aphids, and powdery mildew fungus. Spray the stems of the plants to prevent borers from getting in, spray the underside of the leaves for aphids, and spray the tops of the leaves for powdery mildew.

Harvest Often

This goes for squashes and all veggies – once your plants start producing, harvest often! This helps redirect energy back into the plant, which helps it produce more fruit. Also, you get the fruit before any birds or other critters do!

Watch Wyatt’s Video Guide!

It’s prime time for planting peppers! We’ve got more varieties of peppers this spring than we’ve ever had at Gill’s – from classic jalapeños to native chile pequin to rare varieties and super hot reapers! Peppers are generally considered easy to grow, but there are a few key things to know if you really want to have a BIG harvest. Check out our simple tricks + video guide now!

Sun & Soil

First off – peppers love warm weather and lots of sun. The sunniest spot in your garden is where you should plant your peppers. At a minimum, peppers need 6 hours of sun per day for good growth and production. If you’re growing in the ground in heavy clay or sandy soil, use our beloved Nature’s Blend compost to add nutrients and better structure to your native soil. About 1 bag of compost per 12 square feet of bed space, or the rough equivalent if you’re making your own compost. If you’re growing peppers in containers or raised beds, we highly recommend Gardener’s Magic from Landscaper’s Pride. It’s a nice, loose mix specially formulated for raised beds and it doesn’t need any amendment. Just pour and plant.

Choose Your Varieties – Are You More Mild or More Wild??

We currently have almost every pepper on this list available here at Gill’s! From the mild capsicum (bell pepper) all the way up to the scorpion and reaper. We’ve even got some rare varieties in big 1gal sizes like Yellow Reaper and Chocolate Ghost. Did you know that the horticulturalists who developed super hot peppers in recent years didn’t just do it because they like wildly hot flavor? Their main clientele are hot sauce makers who can make a lot more hot sauce with far fewer peppers. Here’s a fascinating podcast episode about it.

Stake Em Up

Pepper plants are somewhat fragile, and to keep them from getting knocked over by water or wind and breaking, we recommend staking them up. We like to use a single 2-3′ tall bamboo or takiron stake. Loosely tie the main stem of the pepper plants to the stake using pliable green garden tie tape and you’re good to go.

Pick Early Blooms

Pepper plants will start blooming almost immediately after planting, but the plants are still too small to produce fruit. So, pick off the early blooms to redirect energy into growing more foliage. Once the plant is bigger and more robust, then let it bloom and start producing.

Not Too Much Water!

Water your peppers every day for the first week or 2 to get them established, then reduce your watering frequency. Once established, let them dry out between waterings then give them nice deep drinks. Watering too often invites some potential for root rot, decreases your production, and decreases heat and flavor. You want your pepper plants to tough it out – not too much water.

Feed, Feed, Feed!

Like all veggies, peppers are very heavy feeders. If you don’t fertilize regularly, you will not get a good harvest. Use our tried and true method: Medina Growin Green on the 1st of the month, then liquid Hasta Gro on the 15th. Set these reminders/alarms in your phone and you’ll be making fresh salsa all summer.

Watch Wyatt’s Pepper Planting Video Guide!

Rain in the forecast, wonderful temperatures, holidays with family and friends = AMAZING time to garden! We’re all busy planting, re-designing, fertilizing, and getting ready for outdoor fun with guests. Here are our top tips for making the most of a very important month in the garden.

1. Feed Your Plants, Trees, and Lawns Too

Feeding your plants this month is a must. This includes lawns, trees, and most plants. Everything is actively growing, which means they’ll need more food to continue looking their best. Medina Growin Green is a great multi-purpose food for landscape plants, shrubs, trees, veggies, lawns, you name it! For blooming perennials, annual flowers, and veggies we really like using a good organic granular food like Medina Growin Green, Plant Tone by Espoma, or Rose Glo in combination with Medina Hasta Gro liquid. Feed with the granular on the 1st of each month, then follow up with liquid Hasta Gro on the 15th. Add these reminders to your calendar and you can’t go wrong!

Yes, you can still fertilize your lawn, even though our lawn watering is limited. Using a good organic lawn food, like our go-to Medina Growin Green, promotes root growth and long-term health, which makes lawns more tolerant of less water. Ideally you’d want to water the fertilizer in, but you don’t have to. Medina Growin Green is gentle and won’t burn your lawn. You can apply it now and water it in slowly over a few weeks. If you have trees in your yard, keep in mind that fertilizer and water need to be applied at the drip line, aka where rainwater naturally drips off the outer edge of the canopy. Therefore, if you apply fertilizer to your lawn and water it in for the trees, your lawn will get the benefit too. You can also try to time your lawn fertilizing with a light rain. We typically don’t recommend waiting for rain to fertilize since a heavy rain would wash most of the fertilizer granules away. But, given the watering limitations, taking advantage of a light rain is a good solution.

2. Watering Wands Win!

Hand watering with a watering wand that has a cutoff valve is the most efficient and best way to water, especially for new plantings. Watering plants low to the ground keeps water from escaping via wind and evaporation and keeps water off the leaves which can invite fungal issues. Watering slowly (by turning down the pressure on your watering wand or kinking your hose) ensures that more water gets down to the roots instead of running off the surface.

Keep in mind that hand watering and drip irrigation are allowed during current watering restrictions. You can hand water any day before 10am or after 6pm, and you can supplement with drip irrigation once every other week. We carry the pro watering wands that we use here at Gill’s as well as moisture meters, timers, and other supplies to help make the most of your water.

For any new plantings, including turfgrass, you can apply for a temporary exemption to watering restrictions and use sprinklers and irrigation systems in order to help get plants, lawns, and trees established. We can help you file for the exemption if you like – it’s a straightforward process.

3. Plant Blooming Perennials for Pollinators

April is time to add some blooming perennials to attract pollinators like butterflies, bees, and birds to your garden. You support pollinators (and the planet!) and in return they help you have more blooms, better production on your veggies, and a more vibrant landscape! Remember – April is when we start seeing hummingbirds! Add a few of their favorites like this native salvia greggii, native flame acanthus, red yucca, or firebush and make your backyard a preferred stop.

4. Plant Your Warm Weather Veggies

It’s time to plant hot peppers, squash, zucchini, basil, beans, and more! When starting veggies, the trick is to get the soil as active and alive as possible. Amend your existing soil with Nature’s Blend Compost (about 1 bag per 12 sq. ft.), then add a little Bio Tone starter fertilizer with mycorrhizal fungi and a good handful of worm castings when you plant each plant. Then follow our trusted fertilizer schedule – granular food (like Medina Growin Green or Plant Tone) on the 1st of the month and liquid Hasta Gro on the 15th! Remember that veggies use a lot of energy and need these regular feedings to produce – you WILL get more and better-tasting fruit with a good fertilizer schedule. Plus, strong, vigorous veggie plants are less susceptible to pest damage.

5. Mulch! Not Just for Good Looks…

We all know that fresh mulch is like a fresh coat of paint for your garden – instant makeover! But did you know that applying a proper 3” layer of natural mulch keeps underlying soil temps more than 20 degrees cooler?! A good mulch layer keeps weeds at bay, and as it breaks down over time, it add nutrients to your soil. And perhaps most importantly right now, a good mulch layer retains moisture, which means big water savings.

6. Get Ready for Guests

Get outside and enjoy the gorgeous weather and prep for gathering with family and friends! For the quickest and easiest impact outdoors, think hanging baskets full of periwinkles, coleus, hummingbird falls salvia, bougainvillea, and more overflowing with color. Some pops of color plus fresh mulch in your beds and you’re ready to host! For indoors, our favorite flower arrangements are those cut fresh from the garden and landscape, or we have some cute dried arrangements too!

Planting Season!

Fall is Our Best Planting Season!

Trees, shrubs, and perennials get a great bonus when planted in fall. South Texas enjoys relatively warm soil temperatures through fall and winter, and cooler air temperatures direct the new plant to grow roots all through this time. So, a plant put into the ground in fall will grow twice as fast the following spring as one planted in spring due to having developed twice the root system, and it will also suffer much less stress in its first South Texas summer. We are lucky that we can garden year round here, but fall is our best season for planting!

Plant

Vegetable Seeds

Beet, carrot, cilantro, collards, lettuce, mustard, onion, parsley, radish, Swiss chard, spinach, and turnip.

Read: Best Timing for Popular Fall Veggies, Keith’s Swiss Chard Success Story

Flower Seeds

Bluebonnets and other wildflowers, larkspur, sweet peas, nasturtiums.

Read: Fall is Wildflower Planting Time!

Vegetable Transplants

Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, strawberries, parsley, cilantro, and other herbs.

Read: How to Keep Your Vegetable Garden Healthy This Fall, Get Your Greens! Sally’s Kale Smoothie Recipe

Flower Transplants

Alyssum, begonias, bluebonnet, calendula, chrysanthemum, dianthus (pinks) dusty miller, flowering cabbage and kale, geraniums, gerbera daisy, impatiens, lobelia, marigolds, pansies, petunias, phlox, salvia, snapdragons, stock, verbenas, and viola.

Read: Success with Fall Flowers, Marigolds & Mums!

Flower Bulbs

Begin refrigerating bulbs that require chilling such as paperwhites. Amaryllis can be planted now.

Read: Amaryllis & Paperwhites

All container grown trees and shrubs

Read: Burr Oak – an Awesome South Texas Tree
Read: Best Tips of Planting Trees This Fall

Indoor Plants

Check the window lighting for your indoor plants. The sun is moving with the change of the season and may bring more or less light indoors.
Heater vents can cause blemished foliage and dry plants out more quickly. Watch your placement of any new plants coming indoors.
With cold fronts coming, plan to move your house plants indoors, if you have moved any outside during warmer weather. Provide adequate lighting & adjust watering.
Let this be your last feeding for your outdoor tropical plants that are becoming houseplants for the winter. They need to rest.
Keep watch for any tagalong critters or insects & move them back outdoors. Treat if needed.

Fertilize

Read: Organic Gardening

Winterize Your Lawn

Winterize your lawn with organic Milorganite or Medina Growin’ Green.

Tropicals

We recommend: Organic Maestro Rose Glo, Hasta Gro, or conventional Hibiscus Food

Roses

Organic: Maestro Rose Glo

Poinsettias

Organic: with Maestro Rose Glo

Blooming Annuals and Perennials

Organic: Medina Growin Green, Hasta Gro or Maestro Rose Glo

Conventional: Hibiscus Food, or Osmocote 14-14-14 Time Release

Read: Success with Fall Flowers

Vegetables

Organic: Hasta Gro, Medina Growin Green, Maestro Rose Glo, or Plant Tone

Conventional: Hi Yield Ammonium Sulphate, or Osmocote 14-4-14 Time Release Granules

Christmas Cactus

Organic: Hasta Gro

Read: How to Get Your Christmas Cactus to Bloom!

All plants that are especially stressed, or recently transplanted

We recommend organic Hasta Gro.

Read: It’s Time to Fertilize for Fall!

Lawn Care

Apply conventional Fertilome F-Stop as a preventative to brown patch fungus, which shows up as temperatures drop during fall and winter months.

Apply organic Nature’s Blend or Peat Moss to lawns prone to Take All Patch Fungus, or conventional Scotts Disease X.

Read: Protect Your Lawn: Recent Take All Root Rot Sightings (TARR)

Continue to water deeply every 1 to 2 weeks if little rainfall.

Read: Top Five Tips for a Beautiful Fall Lawn, Fall and Winter Lawn Care

Watch Out For

Masses of worms eating your oak tree.

Treat with organic Spinosad or Thuricide or conventional Cyonara

Read: Oak Tree Caterpillars

Grub Worms in Lawns

Treat with Bayer 24 hour Grub Control Granules

White Flies on tropicals and perennials, especially lantana and hibiscus.

Treat with organic Spinosad Soap, Bee Safe 3-in-1, Neem Oil, or conventional Eight Garden Spray Tree & Shrub drench, or Bonide Systemic Garanules.

Chinch Bugs in Lawns

Treat with organic Diatomaceous Earth, Spinosad or conventional Cyonara

Mealy Bugs

Treat with organic Neem Oil, Spinosad Soap, or Bee Safe 3-in-1, or conventional Cyonara, or Bonide Systemic Liquid or Granule

Read: Mealy Bugs are Here!

Mosquitoes

Use Mosquito Beater Liquid for quick kill or Mosquito Beater Granules to repel

Read: Mosquito Solutions

Fleas and Ticks

Treat lawns with organic Spinosad, or Diatomaceous Earth Crawling Insect Killer or conventional Cyonara

Powdery Mildew on Crape Myrtles & Roses

Use organic Neem Oil or conventional Fertilome Systemic Fungicide

Note: Please, Please, Please, don’t kill the bees!

They are one of the best sources we have to pollinate our fruits, vegetables, flowers, and shrubs.

Read: Best for Bees!

Water

Water your newly planted vegetables and bedding plants regularly, but take care not to overwater with cooler nighttime temperatures.

Cut back on watering your established plants and lawn as temperatures cool down, since they use less water. If you are unsure when to water, use a moisture meter to take out the guesswork.

Prune

Your hardy, woody ornamentals and tropicals only to shape, not severely.

Summer perennials.

Veggies

1. Get Your Veggies Going Right Now

2. Fertilize Regularly Starting Now (except for lawns!)

3. Whatever You’re Planting – Add Compost!

4. Plant Level – Not Too Deep!

5. Invite Pollinator Helpers to Your Garden

6. Plant Drought-Tolerant Color!

7. Come to Our Nightbloom Event Next Thursday!

Start with Good Soil

Summer Squash Varieties Don’t Need a Trellis

Feed, Feed, Feed!

Encourage Cross-Pollination

Watch Out for 3 Main Problems

Harvest Often

Watch Wyatt’s Video Guide!

Sun & Soil

Choose Your Varieties – Are You More Mild or More Wild??

Stake Em Up

Pick Early Blooms

Not Too Much Water!

Feed, Feed, Feed!

Watch Wyatt’s Pepper Planting Video Guide!

1. Feed Your Plants, Trees, and Lawns Too

2. Watering Wands Win!

3. Plant Blooming Perennials for Pollinators

4. Plant Your Warm Weather Veggies

5. Mulch! Not Just for Good Looks…

6. Get Ready for Guests

Water + Mulch to Maintain Depth Moisture – Very Important!

A Few Easy Solutions for Bugs After a Rain

What About Weeds?

Plant

September is vegetable and seed month.

Tomatoes & Peppers

Herbs

Bluebonnets & Other Wildflowers, Nasturtiums & Fall Marigolds

Fertilize

Tropicals

Vegetables

Roses

Poinsettias

Blooming Annuals and Perennials

All plants that are especially stressed, or recently transplated

Christmas Cactus

Prune

Lawns

Water

Weed Control

Watch For

Masses of worms eating your oak tree.

White Flies on tropicals and perennials, especially lantana and hibiscus.

Fleas and Ticks

Mealy Bugs

Caterpillars or their damage (chewed leaves).

Mosquitoes

Note: Please, Please, Please, don’t kill the bees!

Planting Season!

Fall is Our Best Planting Season!

Plant

Vegetable Seeds

Flower Seeds

Vegetable Transplants

Flower Transplants

Flower Bulbs

All container grown trees and shrubs

Indoor Plants

Fertilize

Winterize Your Lawn

Tropicals

Roses

Poinsettias

Blooming Annuals and Perennials

Vegetables

Christmas Cactus

All plants that are especially stressed, or recently transplanted

Lawn Care

Watch Out For

Masses of worms eating your oak tree.

Grub Worms in Lawns

White Flies on tropicals and perennials, especially lantana and hibiscus.