THIS TIME of the summer, during the peak of the grass-growing season, you can easily tell if your lawn is receiving the nutrition it needs. Just look for weeds. Hungry lawns usually are weedy lawns. Why? Because weeds sprout at a lower fertility level than do turf grasses.
If you haven’t done so already, give your lawn the good summer fertilization it requires. This is especially important because most of the nutrients you might have put down a few weeks ago likely have been leached away by lots of rainfall. Centipede and Bahia grasses might need extra iron to maintain a lush green color. If you feed and mow your lawn (with a sharp blade) on a regular basis, improvement will come.
Fungus diseases thrive in the hot and wet mid-summer. Watch for lawn fungus and attack it with a good granular fungicide at the first sign of disease. For your roses, spray weekly with a fungicide like Thiomyl, Daconil, or Dithane M-45, and treat as needed with a miticide like Merit to control spider mites, and thrips. Spider mites attack most plants and do great damage.
Watch, also, for scale insects, whiteflies, sod webworms, army worms, chinch bugs, and mole crickets.
It’s after July 1, so hold off on pruning your azalea bushes. Pruning now would reduce the blooms early next year.
Keeping your lawn and garden(s) looking good and producing well takes vigilance and a commitment to address problems quickly and with quality products. Help is just around the corner at Doty Farm and Garden Supply.
CREDIT
column by WILLIAM “BILL” DOTY
BIO: William R. “Bill” Doty is owner of Doty Farm and Garden Supply Inc., founded in Winter Haven in 1954. Bill graduated from Winter Haven High School and Florida State University. Growing up, he learned valuable lessons in listening and asking questions and was a student of the family business. Bill shares his knowledge with his customers daily and with readers of Central Florida Ag News monthly.
