I Need Gardening Advice!!

I have a survival of the fittest concept.... Hard Prune everything!! After Feb. 14, (grandma wives tale!)

Then decide out of what lives to care for!!!

Ok, I am no expert but here goes. You mulch the plants in your planters. That protects them from freezing. If you are economically challenged like the rest of us, you can use a bale of straw from Callahan's (or other feed store) it will be about $ 6.00 and will cover everything you need covered. You don't have to prune everything only if it needs it. Never chop it more than a 1/3 of the whole plant. Since we have already had a couple of hard frosts it should be ok to do it now. Just leave the grass alone unless it starts getting out of control and just give it a little trim. Other than that plants & trees are pretty hardy. You can look up the best time in spring to do a weed & feed for the yard. Look up on the Scott's fertilizer website about what to do about your fungusy patch. Good luck!

Hi C.-

I'm sure someone on this site will be able to help, but when I found myself in the same predicament I hired a landscaper to come "clean up" my landscaping just one time in the fall. Then I took a picture of what it looked like after they were done so that the next year I would remember which plants he cut back and how much so that I could do it myself.

Good Luck,
K.

Hi. My first suggestion will be contact your local County Extension Agent to see if there's a Master Gardener group wherever you are. They'll have advise that is targeted to the area of the country you live in.

Second - some general advice - if you have things that will bloom in the spring, you'll not have any flowers if you prune them now. they bloom on last year's growth. Pruning in general, don't remove more than a third of a plant's living tissue (dead stuff is another matter) flowers that have bloomed - just cut the dead flowers off - (called 'deadheading' btw) and if they're getting 'spindly' with a lot of stems as they're growing, you trim them at a junction of leaves so that they'll get thicker.

St Augustine - fungus or shade. it's more shade tolerant, but also has issues. again, MG can help you.

sites to check out with a LOT of information would be
dirtdoctor.com for an organic approach, aggie horticulture for a lot of information too.

Good luck.

Without seeing your yard, you should probably wait until early- to mid-February to start pruning. This is help to avoid any damage from upcoming cold wather.

The best way to avoid disease in St. Augustine is to cut it as HIGH as your lawn mower will allow.

Buy a book called Gulf Coast Gardening by Randy Lemmon. It is comprehensive, specific, and has a lot of recommended plants. You can also hear his call-in radio show on Saturday and Sunday mornings on 740am. He knows (or knows the people that know) whatever you need for our specific soils and climate.

put some mulch in your flower beds and some winterizer on your lawn then in February put weed and feed out. Every 2 to 3 months you can put something on your lawn. After you put weed and feed out and the weeds are gone then the next time in 2 to 3 months put turf builder. When you go to the garden center you can read on the bag when or what to put on your lawn. I use Scotts the bag is very explanatory. Back to your beds the mulch is boing to drown the weeds out and put nutrients back in the ground. You also want to put fertilizer in this Spring. You should buy the mulch in the Spring that has the manuer mixed in. Also some plants die in the winter and will come back next Spring so read up on your plants that your have out there. You'll be fine as soon as you nipp this in the budd.

Talk to the folks at Natural Gardener. They give lots of free advice.

I'm faced with the same problem. My hunch is that I need to cut back all the obviously dead things I see but I'm also not sure how far to go. I did read some good advice recently--that a weed is any plant growing where you don't want it to! Good luck.

It's hard to know what advice to give you b/c I don't know what plants you have. Do you know what kind of plants you have? Could you take pictures and email me, I could then better help you :)

First you need to do a little research. If the dying plants are perennials, you just need to cut them back and they will return in the spring. If they are annuals, they won't come back once they die BUT, if it's only the flowering part that is dead and the plant still has green leaves, you just cut the dead portion off and the plant should be able to keep growing. When we have the rare sleet/snow mix like the other night or night temps expected to be freezing, cover the plants with a paper bag or newspaper for protection. If the plants are from bulbs, cut them back for now. You can dig them up in the spring, separate the bulbs and replant. Most bulbs should be divided in this matter every 2 years.
Are you sure that the brown spots are caused bu a fungus? I would suggest getting a soil sample analyzed. We usually cut our grass back to just a couple of inches high for the winter months and, when the weather starts to warm and the grass starts coming back, raise the mower blade to 4 inches.
This will let the grass replenish itself and the height will shade the roots and help cut down on watering needs during our hot summers.
The county extension agent can help with any questions and you can also go to sites for "The Green Gardener", The Natural Gardner and other of that type. KLRU has a website that has links to some of these as do most of the local news stations. (keyetv.com, kxan.com etc.)