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Making It Grow! News Articles

September 26, 2005

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We have all heard that "there is an exception to the rule". With the very dry late August and all of September, I think its safe to say that we have an exception to the rule. Generally, we don't recommend watering warm season grasses and shallow rooted ornamentals this late in the growing season. But, for the last six weeks we have not received much rainfall in the Palmetto Sate. It is important that our plants go into dormancy not being stressed. This helps them when they wake up from winter's sleep next spring. Let's make the effort to keep our plants healthy by not subjecting them to water stress.

Question:
At our homeplace, my grandmother had a grove of crape myrtles that was brilliant with color in the fall. We have several of these trees growing in our yard, and they have white flowers and a beautiful dark brown patchy bark. They don't make any kind of show in the fall, however, just sort of brown out. Is there anything I can do to help the fall color develop? Crape myrtle, Lagerstromia indica, is a genus that has undergone tremendous breeding work to improve resistance to aphids and powdery mildew. It sounds like you have the cultivar named 'Natchez' in your landscape. Natchez quickly grows into a small tree with the very attractive cinnamon-brown bark you described.

Unfortunately, when breeders select for one good trait they occasionally loose another feature, and Natchez has leaves with very little fall color and that tend to drop off at the first frost to boot! There are other varieties of crape myrtle that have improved resistance to some problems common to this genus and still make a colorful show in the fall. Clemson University has a good website page devoted to crape myrtles at their home and garden information website. Some gardeners report that nitrogen tends to reduce fall color, so you may want to try a lighter hand with fertilizer, especially since Natchez is such a vigorous grower.

Question: We have a small stand of pine trees at the edge of our lake property. Some of the trees have little holes in them and I can hear what sounds like chewing if I put my ear up to the trunk. I've heard so much about pine beetles? Is there something I can spray to help these trees? There are many boring insects that attack trees, and several different beetles that infest pines. If you look closely you will probably see small piles of sawdust-like material, frass, that is the excrement from these pests.

It is impractical for the homeowner to try to treat borers by spraying their trees. Some of these insects enter the tree from the top of the trunk; others from lower sites. You would have to make applications several times during the year to effectively block entry by these pests. Your best line of defense is healthy trees. Immediately remove the infected trees and have them destroyed. If your stand needs thinning, do so now, saving the largest and healthiest trees. A certified arborist can help you make these decisions and also selectively prune other landscape trees you have to improve their strength and resistance to damage from ice storms and hurricane force winds. The City of Charlotte reported that trees they had under the care of arborists suffered much less damage during an ice storm that destroyed so many shade trees in the southeast.