Neil Sperry's Mailbag

DEAR NEIL: Is there any way of keeping redbud trees from producing those ugly bean pods in the fall?

Not really. If your tree blooms well in the spring you can figure the pods will come in the fall. That is, after all, the way the plant reproduces itself.

You can certainly trim the pods away fairly quickly, but do not trim the actual twig or branch growth.

Redbuds bloomed especially well this past spring, probably because they had been suppressed for a couple of years by prolonged drought.

Rains over the winter and early spring (and beyond) gave them ample moisture to produce really nice floral displays.


DEAR NEIL: I am seeing decorative cedars dying. Is there a reason?

It would help to know which type of tree you're referring to. Eastern redcedars and other junipers were hit badly by bagworms in mid-summer this year.

Spider mites also bother several different species of conifers (junipers, cypress and arborvitae most notably).

We have also lost many native redcedars in the past three years due to the same extended drought mentioned earlier.


DEAR NEIL: How large will a chinquapin oak grow?

Imagine a shumard red oak or a bur oak. Chinquapin oaks are equally large, to 50 feet tall and wide.

They do have a tendency to be a bit upright-oval initially. Good choice! It's a great native tree for Texas.


DEAR NEIL: When we moved into our current home there was an awful invasion of dallisgrass in our bermuda. We used MSMA spray and it killed it.

It took two years, but the lawn is now free of the weed. Is that the best thing we should be using?

It is if you have bermuda turf. However, you cannot use MSMA in St. Augustine lawns as it will kill the St. Augustine even more quickly.

Hand-digging is the only option there. The best time to treat dallisgrass is actually in late spring and early summer. It sounds like you must have done things correctly. Congratulations. Be cautious not to let weeds from adjacent properties back into your lawn.


DEAR NEIL: I saw, in one of the northern fruit tree catalogs, an ad for a multiple fruit tree producing peaches, plums, apricots and nectarines. How well will those trees grow in the South?

If you're serious about wanting to grow fruit in a home orchard, plant the trees individually. That's an old novelty way of grafting several related trees onto a common rootstock. It's pretty much of a gimmick. The problem is that one or two of the tree types always ends up out-growing the others.

Your local county Extension office will have the Texas A&M fruit experts' recommendations of the best varieties for each county. As an added problem, most of the northern varieties of each of these crops won't get enough "chilling" (hours between 32 and 45 degrees) in an average Texas winter to produce normal (for them) crops of fruit.

Two dilemmas. First, the normal unpruned height for that plant is 10 to 15 feet, so to prune it at less than 6 feet is pretty severe. Second, we're in a tough spot when we try to do major pruning, because the new red growth will always come at the ends of last year's shoots. The best time to do any major pruning on an evergreen shrub is in late winter (February), but that's just when photinias are coloring up. You're going to have to prune it then, however, or you'll be wasting all that energy it uses to produce the new growth. Try to do a little pruning all along in the future, rather than any one major trimming.


DEAR NEIL: I'd like to dig and divide my pampas grass plant. When should I do it? I want to make a row of five plants as a screen.

Dig the established clump in mid- to late February. By then you'll be able to assess any freeze damage than might have occurred to it and trim it back accordingly. You'll need a stout spade to lift it if it's been growing in one spot for more than a couple of years. Cut the clump into basketball-sized pieces (or larger), trim the leaves back by 50 to 70 percent, and plant the new smaller clumps on 6- or 8-foot centers. Water them immediately after you plant them, and use a high-nitrogen lawn-type fertilizer several times next spring and summer, one-quarter cup per plant, to promote quick growth.


DEAR NEIL: I have weeds that grow between my wood fence and a chain link fence. They have some kind of little pixie flowers on them. I get rid of the plants, but they keep coming back. What could I use that would be better?

It sounds like they are broadleafed weeds (that's the category of weeds that are not grasses). You could use a broadleafed weedkiller containing 2,4-d.

It will be a spray that you would carefully apply with a pump sprayer. Put it on through the chain link fence, and apply it specifically to the foliage of the weeds. It needs to be warm (approaching 70 F), and it should not rain for 48 hours after you spray. It will take a week or two, but it will kill the weeds. If you can break the cycle early enough in the season that this year's weeds can't go to seed, you should be able to eliminate them.

For the record, once you use a sprayer for any type of weedkiller, you should never use it to apply insecticides or fungicides. It's too difficult to rinse out the residues. Mark it specifically for weedkiller use.


DEAR NEIL: Why is my live oak losing its leaves so early? Normally that doesn't happen until late winter.

Of course, it could be due to something exotic, but far and away the most common cause this year has been leftover effects of all the rains in late spring and early summer. We had widespread impact from fungal leaf diseases. Hollies, oaks and many of our other stalwart plants suffered. Things should be fine come spring.


DEAR NEIL: You mentioned peonies in a recent column. I have noticed, while visiting relatives at the time they were blooming, that they are fragrant in Iowa and not in Washington. Is that unusual?

It probably has a lot more to do with the varieties that were being grown or where in their flowering cycle they were when you saw them. Fragrance of almost any group of flowers will vary from variety to variety. Roses are the classic example. You can smell some varieties as soon as you enter the garden. Others require much closer olfactory inspection. Also, fragrant flowers will have their best aromas early in the lives of the individual flowers and early in the morning as well.


DEAR NEIL: We are trying to eliminate a row of old-fashioned nandinas that are growing too close to our house. We tried pulling them up, and we have applied Round-Up, diesel oil and 2, 4-d. Nothing has killed them out completely, and they're so thick we can't get a rototiller into them. What can we do?

Pretty good testimonial as to why nandinas are so popular where we do want them. The best method is one that you mentioned, and that would be the same broadleafed weedkiller 2, 4-d that we mentioned earlier, applied as a foliar spray to active new growth in mid-spring. Wait until May, then spray at the recommended rate. You'll still have those massive roots to contend with, but at least you'll have killed the top growth. You might try a really heavy-duty rototiller. Beware of any utility lines that might run into your house through their bed.


DEAR NEIL: I have a large oak tree that is close to my drive. One of the tree's roots has lifted the drive by about 5 inches. Can I safely remove that root in order to replace that elevated portion of my drive?

Absolutely. The tree will recover, assuming it suffers at all. While you have the driveway torn up you might check for any other smaller roots that may be waiting their turn to do your drive harm. Cut a trench along the side of the drive and install some type of root barrier to keep additional roots from causing a problem. You could also install interlocking concrete pavers that would allow you easier access to the soil without breaking solid pieces of concrete.


DEAR NEIL: I have new blackberry plants that have grown very well. They were planted last winter. Should they be pruned now?

Oh, no! Blackberries produce fruit on canes that were produced the preceding year. Once they bear fruit, however, those canes will never bear again. That makes early June the best time to cut the canes that have just borne fruit back completely to the ground. "Tip-prune" the new canes this spring to keep them shorter and more compact.


Have a question you'd like neil to consider? Mail it to him in care of this newspaper or e-mail him at mailbag@sperrygardens.com. Neil regrets that he cannot reply to questions individually.

Neil Sperry
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