I am not sure if you noticed, but the temperature seems a little drastic these past weeks; enough that I have been daydreaming about how to make an air conditioner I could wear on my shoulders for the 30 seconds it takes to walk from the car to my office.
You know when some people say it isn’t so much the heat; it is the humidity? This week, they both stink.
There are some things that I have been noticing in the landscape (mostly from out the living room window) that I thought I might mention for this time of year. Raise your lawnmower blade about a half inch on Bermuda lawns to keep them green. I increased my mower height about two mows ago, and it really looks good. You
can add a little more nitrogen to Bermuda and zoysia lawns, but do it lightly and do it now; 16-4-8 or 15-0-15 should be good.
I would do it now up until Labor Day, but if you wait any longer, fertilizing will put the grass into turbo mode when it really needs to start slowing down.
I am seeing chinch bugs attacking St Augustine lawns regularly on my drives about town. I even had a small spot in my yard that they tried to infest.
If you aren’t keeping the grass moist, look for them attacking the hottest and driest places in the lawn. A lot of times they will be near some type of hardscape like a curb or walkway where it radiates heat. There are a bunch of chemicals you can use to treat them when you do see infestations. Make sure to treat quickly, because they can overtake a lawn in a hurry and turn a nice St. Augustine lawn into a barren wasteland.
With this heat, be extra careful when spraying pesticides for insect and weed infestations. I have gotten many calls about Crape Myrtle Bark Scale and tea scale on magnolias. Topical treatments aren’t usually difficult, but when the sun is baking like it is, some pesticides can burn plants. If it isn’t an emergency to treat, wait until it cools down some before treating. If it is a nasty issue, spray early in the morning or late in the evening.
Weed control this time of year is also tough. If you have well-established weeds, you are probably only going to hurt their feelings if you spray them in your lawn. Stick to spot spraying early in the morning or late in the evening on hard-to-kill weeds or ones that have just popped up. It is also a good idea to keep them mowed down so they won’t reseed. Frost will eventually kill these summer annual weeds, but cold weather seems like an eon away.
I have had some pretty neat animal encounters in my own yard these past few weeks. The hummingbirds are loving my blue salvia and are devouring the sugar water in my feeder. I was looking out the window at a male ruby-throated hummingbird, and my feeder was empty after only being replenished two days before. He was watching me watch him through the window. He hovered, staring right at me, and went back to the feeder and then back to me. He was definitely telling me to “fill it up, buddy.” I got the hint.
Keep your bird baths full because animals are struggling to find sources of H2O. Maybe we will get some needed rain and a reprieve in the temperature in the next few weeks.
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Extreme heat complicates weed and pest control | Exclusive column
