Q. I was major-handed with fertilizing my centipedegrass garden this spring and I think I’ve killed sections of my garden. Will the lawn recuperate, or am I on the lookout at replanting what appears to be to be useless garden places?
A. Listed here is a primary rule of thumb. If you have hurt sections in your lawn that are 3 feet across or greater and there is a lot less than 30% to 40% stay grass in people places, you may have to have to replant. In this situation, there basically is not more than enough are living plant material still left to get better.
Many men and women overdo it in fertilizing their lawns, especially with centipedegrass. A single benefit of centipede is that it does very well with negligible fertilization. Its natural coloration is gentle environmentally friendly, virtually a crabapple green.
Centipede unforgiving when fertilized too seriously or also often. Mainly, all that is essential is a person or maybe two gentle programs of fertilizer for every year — one in spring (no before than mid-April) and maybe a 2nd software in mid to late summer time.
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An software of iron through summer time may perhaps be a better choice to deliver a superior environmentally friendly coloration verses a second software of a nitrogen-made up of fertilizer. Overdoing it with as well a great deal nitrogen, resulting in a dim inexperienced garden, brings about a ailment referred to as Centipedegrass Decrease.
This decline benefits in spots of the garden declining/dying, occasionally big areas. The drop usually transpires the same yr or up to several several years next overdoing it with far too substantially nitrogen fertilizer.
In this article is a backlink to a UF/IFAS Extension publication on centipedegrass with more information and facts: https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/LH009.
Q. Quite a few of the young leaves on my river birch tree glance crinkled and thickened. What brought about this and do I will need to treat it?
A. What you’ve got explained appears like aphid harm.
Aphids are modest, comfortable overall body bugs. They will sometimes feed on young tender leaves as the leaves very first emerge in spring. Aphids insert their needle-like mouth element into youthful tender leaves and suck the “juice” from the leaves. This feeding effects in the leaves turning into crinkled and thickened, and is frequent on river birch trees.
As the leaves experienced, aphids come across it more challenging to penetrate the leaves and shift on to other plants. Some of the afflicted leaves may possibly not produce thoroughly and may perhaps slide prematurely.
It’s more of an aesthetic dilemma, though. In my opinion, it is not practical to take care of for aphids on a significant tree. The hurt they cause is additional visible and should really not induce a very long-term challenge for the health of your tree.
