DEL.ICIO.USWALTER REEVES
Temperature of soil determines time for pre-emergent
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Q: You recommend that, in Atlanta, gardeners should apply pre-emergent on March 1 to prevent crab grass. What date do you recommend in Americus?
LAMAR CHAVERS, Sumter County
Walter Reeves
Lawn pre-emergent should be applied after forsythia blooms but before dogwood flowers (above) open.
RELATED LINKS:
- Listen to Walter Reeves Saturday mornings on NewsTalk 750 WSB-AM from 6 to 10. Call 404-872-0750 to ask questions.
- His Web site, walterreeves.com, contains thousands of answers to lawn and landscape questions. Watch "Gardening in Georgia" each week on GPB. Details at gardeningingeorgia.com.
A: It all depends on soil warmth. Crab grass germinates when soil temperatures are 50 degrees and rising. In South Georgia this usually happens around Feb. 15. Here’s an idea: Let your flowering plants tell you when to apply pre-emergent. Get the job done after forsythia and azaleas begin to bloom but before dogwoods bloom in your area.
Q: My yard gets too much shade from oak trees. I’ve found “Shade Champ” grass seed for sale. It contains creeping red fescue, PennLawn red fescue, Chewings fescue and Pizzazz rye grass. Can it really grow in Georgia?
JOHN HIBBARD, Dunwoody
A: All of the grasses listed are shade-tolerant but they aren’t Georgia heat-and-humidity tolerant. Creeping red fescue sometimes makes a tolerable stand but it really suffers at 90 degrees and above. It usually disappears in a year or two. I would not depend on this mixture to solve your shady lawn problem. Either hire an arborist to limb up the trees to admit more light or plant shade-loving plants such as ferns and Lenten rose.
Q: I noticed last week that my flowering magnolia has huge buds on it. Will it have black blooms because of the cold?
JIMMY W. MIZE, e-mail
A: Flowering magnolias, including star magnolia and saucer magnolia, are extremely cold tolerant. They grow in parts of the country where winter temperatures go below zero, so they do fine in a Georgia winter. The Achilles’ heel of these beautiful small trees is the fact that they can be triggered into bloom by a week of warm weather in February. Although the buds are cold tolerant, the flowers are not. I think your magnolia blooms will be fine, as long as February weather cooperates.
Q: We have an Autumn Blaze maple tree that we built a deck around. The branches at the bottom are very close to the floor of the deck. Should we prune the bottom branches or will the branches grow up as the tree grows taller?
JOHN SHIREY, e-mail
A: The branches won’t rise as the tree grows taller. As long as you won’t be removing more than a quarter of the foliage of the overall tree, you can remove any branches that are in your way. February is a fine time to do the job.
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