Fall is in the Air

Temperatures, leaves, and rain are beginning to fall. My favorite time of the year. Time to fertilize lawns, trees, shrubs and perennials. Fall is also a great time to divide most perennials and replant or give to friends and relatives.
The cool temperatures and shorter days begin to slow down plant processes. However the soil temperature which are still warm create continued root growth and carbohydrate production. This is why fall is for planting and fertilizing.

Coleus

These wonderfully colored foliage annuals complement any landscape design or theme.

Hard Facts of Gardening

• Plants die. Sometimes it's your fault; sometimes it isn't.
• Lawn grass would rather grow in your garden than in your lawn.
• "No maintenance" is just a figure of speech.
• If you water your garden, it will rain. If you don't water, it will be dry.
• If you let other people dictate your garden choices, you will end up with a garden that doesn't make you happy.
• Weeding is not a good way to introduce gardening to a young child who can't tell the difference between the plants you want and the ones you don't.
• A gardener-of any skill level-who can't admit to making mistakes is either a fool or a liar.
• You should stop pruning while the tree still has a few branches.
• If deer don't eat it, then rabbits, voles, or groundhogs will.
• You will often buy more plants than you need.
• You will often buy more plants than you can afford.
• You will always buy more plants than your spouse thinks you need or can afford.*

*from Fine Gardening magazine

Rhizoctonia

Brown Patch-(Rhizoctonia)- a crown disease which effects my turf type Tall Fescue lawn in Kansas. Large rainfall amounts, high humidity, temps in the 90's, alkaline soils, and wet grass leaves in the morning cause this disease to spread. Well welcome to Kansas.I'm probably going to lose 50% of my new stand on the west side of the house. Guess I'll pay more attention next year and apply a preventative fungicide treatment. Will see.

Lightning Strikes

Winfield went through severe weather on saturday evening. 50 - 60 mile an hour winds. Our neighbors tree was struck by lightining, exploding the top of the tree and removing a lot of bark on the main trunk. It is literaly toast. 3.5 inches of rain came with the storm. Plants in my garden were recovering from a week of 100 degree temps. Some plants have rotted from all the rains. Dwarf Lambs ear, some gloriosa daisy, have succumbed to the rot.

Whats happening in Greggos garden today you ask?

Temperature is 100 degrees in winfield so not much going on in the garden today. Propogated some monkey grass (Liriope) early this afternoon by slicing some bunches I had removed from the front entrance to the house and moved to a shaded area near the driveway for storage. Ground is hard and blisters started to appear so I called it a day.