Home Gardening

North Mississippi Gardening Tips
September, 2004

FLOWERS

You still have time to cut back your larger recurrent blooming roses by one-third if you do it in early September. This will allow time for the plants to send up vigorous new canes to provide one more blooming show before freezes in late October, or early November, end the season. Now is the time to seed those hardy flowers like purple coneflower, Shasta daisy, larkspur, foxglove, poppies etc. Wildflowers like oxeye daisy, bachelor buttons, black-eyed Susan, goldenrods, and gaillardias should be sown now. Refer to the Extension publication Wildflowers for Mississippi Meadows and Gardens for complete details on how to start a wildflower garden. This publication also contains good tips on site selection and soil preparation that would help with the establishment of any flower garden in the fall. If you have cut back summer bloomers last month, these plants should be rebounding now with lush new growth and new flowers. Continue to water, fertilize and remove spent flowers to keep these plants looking good right up to frost.

TREES AND SHRUBS

Do not prune or fertilize shrubs, vines or trees this month. This would encourage tender growth, which might be killed by the first hard freezes. It would also remove flower buds of spring bloomers like azalea, rhododendron, spirea, and forsythia. Bugs and diseases aren't as bad in September as they can be in the summer months, but it is still important to be a diligent scout of your garden to spot problems and take action if needed. There is a lot of merit to the old saying "One aphid killed in the fall is a thousand killed in the spring." If you spot a problem you can't identify, take a disease infected or insect infested plant part (leaf, flower, branch) to your county Extension office for assistance. If they can't identify it on the spot they may can take digital pictures (most county offices have a digital camera) and send to the appropriate Extension specialist at Mississippi State for a timely diagnosis and treatment recommendation. They can also package the sample and send to the diagnostic lab at State for diagnosis. There is a fee for this service.

It is better to wait until November to plant shrubs like azalea, camellia, hydrangea, and hollies. At this time these plants will be dormant and transplanting will be less of a shock.

FRUIT

For those of us who grow apples in north Mississippi, this is the month of harvest. Continue your spray program on those apples that are not yet ripe. A complete home orchard spray that is formulated with a fungicide and insecticides combined is the most practical and economical method of treatment. The recommended harvest method for pears is to pick them from the tree before they hit the ground, get bruised and covered with yellow jackets. Well, that is easier said than done most times for me! It is cheaper over all to just go buy the fruit you want from the local farmer's market rather than growing and caring for your own trees; but there is nothing more satisfying than picking your own home grown fruit from your trees. Homemade pies, cobblers, jams, jellies and preserves are a special treat when made with your own fruit. Our Southern grape, the muscadine, rewards minimal care with buckets of delicious grapes. The only really critical regular maintenance on these vigorous vines is pruning. Of course, they respond to fertilization, but some years I have totally forgotten to fertilize mine and they yielded well anyway. Annual pruning, however, is important if you want a good harvest of large grapes. You do not prune these grapes like bunch grapes. Refer to the publications on muscadines on the msucares.com website by clicking on publications and then searching by subject.

LAWNS

This is a transition month for our lawns. The warm season grasses that have performed all summer are gearing down for the cooler season ahead. The cool season grasses that have been lackluster during the hot months are beginning to come to life again as the nights get cooler. Do not fertilize warm season grasses now as growth is slowing and dormancy will begin with the first frost. Cool season grasses like tall fescue; Kentucky bluegrass and creeping red fescue are due an application of fertilizer in the middle of this month. Refer to Extension Publication 1322 Establish and Manage Your Home Lawn for recommended rates. Optimum seeding dates for these three cool season grasses are September 1st through November 1st in north Mississippi. Fall is the time to do soil testing to help you plan your fertilization program for next year. This is also the ideal time to apply lime if your soil analysis recommended an application.

VEGETABLES

I read an article somewhere that "in the olden days" people in the country always grew a fall garden of greens, beets, carrots and even fall Irish potatoes. Well, I must still be living in "the olden days" because my large family clan of brothers and cousins all still have a fall garden - if it is nothing but a large "sallet patch." We still tend to sow way yonder more mustard and turnip seed than we could possibly consume! Even if you don't live in the country on a place with land, you too can have a fall garden. It is not too late. You can still sow some seed of radishes or leaf lettuce into a large container such as a half whiskey barrel planter.

Lelia Scott Kelly, Ph.D., writes North Mississippi Gardening Tips monthly and is a Horticulture Specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service. Her office is in the North Mississippi Research & Extension Center, Verona.