Radio Show: Preparing your lawn for Spring

That brown lawn might look dead, but chances are it's just dormant. Find out what you need to do -- and just as importantly, what you shouldn't do -- to ready your lawn for spring.

Overgrown camellia causing problems

By Audrey Post
MS. GROW-IT-ALL®

Q: We have a camellia at the corner of our house that is probably 15 or 20 feet tall, and it’s blocking our access to paint the house on that side. Can we cut it back?

A: This is an example of planting a tree or shrub without taking into account how big it can get. Your camellia is obviously too close to the house. If it’s preventing you from painting the side of the house, it might be holding in moisture and contributing to rot.

As painful as it is to let a mature camellia go, that’s exactly what you need to do. If you cut it back, eventually you or the next homeowner will have the same problem. You can cut it back, dig it up and move it if you’re really attached to it, or you can plant another one a more appropriate distance from the house. Remember: Any plant in the wrong place is a weed.

More on bottlebrushes: A couple of weeks ago, a reader wanted advice on how to tell whether her bottlebrush trees had survived winter freezes. David McManus, assistant director of grounds at The Florida State University, wrote to say that while common types of Callistemon are susceptible to cold damage, one seems to recover quickly. In addition, there’s a cold-tolerant one.

“I love bottlebrushes but unfortunately the local nurseries often carry Callistemon viminalis (large weeping) and Callistemon citrinus (fast-growing upright), which are more tender than Callistemon rigidus, which is a slower grower with narrower leaves,” said McManus, who earned a horticulture degree at the University of Florida. “Those two are frequently hurt by hard freezes, but viminalis has made fast recoveries in past years” at Tallahassee Community College.

Although the literature says C. rigidus is hardy only to Zone 9 -- Central Florida and points south -- McManus said it is dependable throughout Zone 8. “I have been growing rigidus at my family’s farm near High Springs since the early '80's and at my home near Havana since 2000 and I have not seen any injury from cold,” he wrote.

“Woodlander’s Hardy” is a cultivar that reportedly has high cold tolerance, he said, although he has never grown it.

Hummingbirds love Callistemon, so a cold-hardy variety is a treasure for gardeners wanting to attract hummers.

More on fertilizing dogwood trees: Last week’s column answered a reader’s specific question about the best time to apply fertilizer to dogwood trees. My answer might have left the impression that you must fertilize your dogwood trees, and that’s not true. If you want your trees to grow faster, apply fertilizer. But if you picked a good location that meets the trees’ needs and have good soil with adequate moisture, they’ll grow just fine without fertilizer. Many gardeners tend to overuse fertilizer, and the excess runs off and pollutes our springs, rivers and trees. If you use fertilizer, use a light hand.

Radio Show: Soil v. dirt

This week, frequent co-host Stan Rosenthal joined us for a conversation about what makes good soil for gardening. Stan, our Leon County forester who added a minor in soil science to his major in forestry, also answered the question: What's the difference between dirt and soil?

Care and feeding of dogwoods

By Audrey Post
MS. GROW-IT-ALL®

Q: I use fertilizer spikes to feed my dogwood trees. Is now the right time to put out the spikes? Q: Can I plant a dogwood tree on my property at the coast?

A: Flowering dogwood, Cornus florida, is one of the heralds of spring, and you can see it starting to bloom throughout the Deep South right now. The flowers are inconspicuous clusters of yellow fuzz in the center of four bracts that make up what we think of as the dogwood blossom. White is the most common bract color, but there are cultivars with pink or red bracts. In fall, the leaves turn red or maroon, and the color is more vivid the farther north you go. The red berries are favored by birds and other wildlife.

It’s a popular tree for the home landscape, particularly as a patio shade tree, but it is susceptible to pests and disease, including dogwood anthracnose. The best way to prevent the disease is to keep the tree well-watered in times of drought and to avoid overhead watering.

Although it can take full sun, it really performs best with afternoon shade. Many people use it as an understory tree, but too much shade can make the tree grow too tall too fast, weakening the structure. Too much shade also reduces the number of flowers.

A dogwood can’t take salt, either in the air or in the water. It’s not a good choice for coastal property.

Dogwoods should be fertilized three times a year for the first three to five years after being planted, in March, May and August in Zones 8a and 8b, with a slow-release 12-4-8 or 15-5-15 formula. Calculate the area under the tree’s drip-line, the farthest point from the trunk where water drips off the leaves, and apply one-half pound for every 500 square feet of area. Spread the fertilizer a little beyond the drip-line.

Trees in Zones 7 and 6 need only two feedings a year, March or April and July. Once trees are established, they don’t need fertilizing if they’re growing where nearby lawn or shrubs are fertilized.

Different brands of fertilizer spikes have different strengths, so follow the directions that come with the package.

Radio Show: Pass-along plants

This week Ms. Grow-It-All was delighted to welcome noted author and gardener June Bailey White as her guest for a conversation about "pass-along plants." The plants, also known as heirloom plants, are stalwarts of the garden that have been handed down through generations and shared among friends because they're proven to thrive in area gardens. June is co-chair of next Saturday's Old-Timey Plant Sale at Birdsong Nature Center, located between Tallahassee, Fla., and Thomasville, Ga., and many of the plants for sale are heirlooms/pass-alongs. For more on Birdsong and the plant sale, visit its Web site at www.birdsongnaturecenter.org. If you're reading this within seven days of the original broadcast, click on the link to the right to listen. If you've missed that window, you can find complete archives of all the Ms. Grow-It-All Blog Talk Radio broadcasts at www.FreeWorldRadioNetwork.net. This was the first broadcast in the show's expanded half-hour format.

Take care when placing, pruning pyracantha

By Audrey Post
MS. GROW-IT-ALL®

Q: I need to know how to take care of two pyracantha bushes, which are side by side. I'd like for them to bush more as opposed to shooting out long arms. When should I prune them and fertilize them, and which fertilizer, etc.? I'm not a gardener but I love flowers and flowering bushes.

A: Unfortunately, what you’re asking for is not easily attained, and if you are able to get it, it could come at a price you’re not willing to pay.

Pyracantha, commonly called firethorn, is a member of the rose family, and both relatives have thorns. But roses are nothing compared to firethorn when it comes to aggressive growth habits. Firethorn throws out long, shooting branches that look really attractive when they’re planted in an out-of-the-way location but pose extreme danger in close proximity. It really needs to be planted far away from traffic areas.

To keep the firethorn in check and force a more bush-type shape, you’ll have to prune it severely and do it several times a year. It will eventually conform to the shape you’re seeking, but it will continue to put out long, leggy shoots each year that need to be chopped back.

What do you love about your pyracanthas? I suspect it’s a little bit the white flowers in spring and a lot the red berries in the fall and winter. And those flowers and berries form on year-old wood, so all that pruning and chopping to keep the shrub in bounds will results in loss of what you really value in your pyracantha.

My advice is to let the pyracantha do what it does naturally. It eventually will form a dense arching shrub that is a haven for wildlife and a source of beautiful flowers and fruit. Pyracantha needs little or no supplemental food, so don’t worry about fertilizing it. It’s also drought-tolerant once established.

If you want more rounded, bushy shrubs, I suggest planting hydrangeas or old-garden shrub roses in an appropriate spot. Your arms and hands will thank for skipping the pruning and the thorns.

Q: I have several bottlebrush planted in my yard, and almost all are mature, about 10 feet tall. They all bloom profusely and the hummers enjoy them. However, the freezes we had a couple of weeks ago have really done a number on them and all of them – their leaves – are brown and quite burnt-dead. Should I prune the dead branches now and risk no blooms, or should I let them go and see what happens to all the dead leaves?

A: There are a couple of shrubs called bottlebrush. One, Callistemon, is hardy only in USDA Zone 9 – Central Florida -- and points south. It can be expected to sustain serious damage in a hard freeze.

More cold tolerant is the bottlebrush buckeye, Aesculus parviflora, which is cold-tolerant to Zone 5. A hard freeze would throw it into dormancy, which means it looks dead but isn't.

Since I don’t know which kind of bottlebrushes you have, I suggest you wait until they start to sprout before you prune. If your plants are Aesculus, the shrubs are simply dormant and will come back. If they’re Callistemon, you’ll see lots of dead branches. You can prune them, or decide to replace the entire shrub with the more cold-hardy type.

No radio show today

Our apologies. Because of technical difficulties with Blog Talk Radio, Ms. Grow-It-All did not broadcast a show today. Please tune in next week at the usual time, 9 a.m. Eastern. In the meantime, visit www.FreeWorldRadioNetwork.net for an archive of our earlier shows to catch any you missed.

Brown winter grass likely just dormant

By Audrey Post
MS. GROW-IT-ALL®

Q: Is there anything I can do to help my lawn get through these last freezes of winter? It looks bad enough now, all brown and dry. I really don’t want it to get worse.

A: More than likely, your lawn is just in winter dormancy. Most sod grasses grown in the Deep South – particularly St. Augustine, zoysia and centipede --are tolerant of both the heat and humidity of summer and the occasional hard freezes of winter.

The leaf blades look brown and dead, but the runners that produce the blades and the roots are probably fine. It’s too early to be able to diagnose a fatal injury. Wait until mid- to late April in Zones 8a and 8b – roughly an area from just south of Atlanta to just north of Orlando – to start worrying. Give your grass a chance to start growing again; you’ll be able to see problem areas by then, and even those might fill in.

It won’t do any good to fertilize or mow now. The soil is too cool to absorb the nutrients in the fertilizer, and mowing could prompt new growth that would be susceptible to damage in the next freeze.

The one thing you could do before the next freeze is to water your lawn just enough to get the soil moist. The water will provide some insulation. It’s the same principle commercial fruit growers follow when they water their crops right before a freeze.

Reader tip for cold protection: Elizabeth Henderson of Tallahassee e-mailed to share a tip she learned from her neighbor Ann about protecting fragile plants from freezing.

“As the temperatures wax and wane in our part of Northern Florida, my neighbor Ann has found the solution to ‘protection.’ Rather than cover her plants with blankets, she has draped her plants with Christmas tree lights. I adopted this plan, as I have been trying to keep my fragile staghorn fern alive and it is much too large and heavy to move inside.”

Her neighbor simply goes outside and plugs in the lights if the night temperatures are forecast to drop below 40 degrees Farenheit, and then checks the morning temps to decide when to turn off the lights.

“My staghorn and other ferns have survived well with the recent drops to 18 and 15,” Elizabeth reports. Her neighbor is using what she describes as “the nice small white Christmas lights” and they have worked well.

However, “in my move to the Village of Westminster Oaks, the only lights I have are the large colored lights my family used to drape the back eave of our former home, and they have not only protected the ferns, but also anything that is growing on the ground below.” She loves not having to go out cover the plant, then, remove the cover in the morning, only to repeat the process that evening.

“So, to the ‘Zing-er’ who noted some folks still have their Christmas lights on, maybe it is those of us who have learned the simple way to save our plants during the freezing temps!”