Garden Calendar for Georgia

 

September

FIRST WEEK

If you’re forced to dig a hole for a post in hard soil, let your water hose trickle in the spot all night long. The water will soften the soil from its concrete-like state.

It’s easy to see the big webs of fall webworm caterpillars in your trees. If you can reach it with a pole, destroy the webbing to expose the worms to beneficial wasps and hornets.

Feed orchids regularly. Most growers fertilize with a weak solution of houseplant fertilizer every third watering.

Finish dividing daylily clumps, iris rhizomes and peony roots now. They need several weeks to grow new roots before the soil turns chilly.

SECOND WEEK

Stressed oak trees may ooze a foul liquid that smells like either beer or vinegar. Slime flux can not be cured. Wash the fluid off the bark and water the tree to help it heal itself.

Bag worms do tremendous damage to Leyland cypress, arborvitae and junipers. Make a thorough search and remove every bag you see.

Inspect your patio house plants for signs of insect damage. Pest control is much easier and safer while the plants are outside for the summer than after you bring them in this fall.

Fertilize shrub roses with one tablespoon of 10-10-10 per foot of height now to stimulate new growth. As the weather cools, you’ll get roses for the fall.

THIRD WEEK

Unless they produce edible fruit you enjoy, wild blackberries should be killed by digging or with herbicides. Unchecked, they can cover a large area very quickly.

Drought or no drought, every lawn irrigation system should have a rain sensor that turns it off in the event of precipitation. If you don’t have one now, they are inexpensive and easy to install by a do-it-yourselfer

Buy and plant chrysanthemums as soon as they become available. For a longer blooming period, choose plants that are just coming into bud instead of those already in full bloom.

Put poinsettias into complete darkness for fourteen hours each day until late-November to stimulate their change in color. Give them ten hours of bright light daily as well.

 

FOURTH WEEK

Hundreds of holes in the leaves of ‘Otto Luyken’ laurel signify bacterial leaf spot. Prune to increase air circulation, don’t wet the foliage and spray with Kocide or Kop-R-Spray.

Look on the ground around your blackberry and raspberry plants. The canes snaking across the ground should be trained back to their wire arbor.

Cut back faded annual flowers by half, then water and lightly fertilize with liquid 20-20-20. A second season of blooms will begin to appear in two weeks.

Dry herbs. Gather bundles of each kind and hang in a dark, hot, dry spot. A car trunk will do in a pinch - and your daily commute will be more pleasant as well.