Keith Hansen

April is a busy gardening month, with so much to see and enjoy, plant and do in the yard and garden.

Here are few items to keep you busy this month.

The mild, pleasant weather along with timely rains means greener greens and brighter dogwood and azalea blooms. Hopefully we'll able to enjoy the azalea display for a while longer. Get out and enjoy the vibrant displays - drive the Tyler Azalea and Spring Flower Trail, and also visit the Ina Brundrett Azalea Garden located on the Tyler Junior College campus just west of the Tyler Museum of Art.

Don't forget to visit the Tyler Rose Garden this month. The IDEA Garden and Heritage Rose Garden always have something new blooming and interesting to see, and at the end of April, the main Rose Garden will be ablaze with color and awash with rose perfume.

The recent rains have brought fire ant mounds. Now is the time to treat, using the "Texas 2-Step Method" developed by Extension entomologists.

The first step is to determine how serious the problem in your yard is. If you find more than four or five mounds in a typcial sized urban yard, then proceed with the Step 1. If there are no mounds, or only one or two, then proceed to Step 2 to directly treat those mounds.

The first step is to broadcast, using a hand-held spreader, a fire ant bait evenly over the entire yard. Follow the label directions. Most baits are applied at a very low rate of 1 to 1 1/2 pounds per acre.

Fire ants foraging for food take the bait and then carry it into the colony. Baits are designed to work slowly, giving them time to affect the entire colony. So, do not be anxious if you do not see immediate results. Do not apply baits when rain is in the forcast, or when the ground and grass is wet. When broadcast bait applications are properly done, you can get several months of relief from fire ants.

The second step is to directly treat mounds that are in the immediate vicinity of human activity with an insecticide labeled for fire ants.

This will quickly eliminate those nuisance mounds. For more detailed information, visit the Texas A&M Fire Ant web site at http://fireants.tamu.edu

Weeds are probably getting your attention right now. Most of the weeds we are seeing right now are cool season weeds -- ones that germinated last fall and winter, and will eventually go away with the heat of summer. Write down on your September calendar to treat those weedy areas with a preemergent herbicide in the fall to prevent the same thing showing up in 2009.

WEED PREVENTION

As I mentioned last month, the best weed prevention is a sound lawn maintenance program of frequent mowing at the right height, proper fertilizing and timely watering.

Mowing infrequently or at the wrong height, over or under fertilizing, and frequent, shallow irrigation are some of the factors that lead to poor turf quality. No amount of weed preventer or weed killer can overcome poor lawn care practices. Weeds will occupy weakend and thin spots of any lawn.

Bermuda and St. Augustine lawns begin growing in April, and this is the time to make the first application of fertilizer. Centipede lawns are slower to come out of dormancy, and should not be fertilized until May.

What kind of fertilizer your grass needs should ideally be determined by a soil test. If you don't soil test (and you should), then use a product with a ratio of nutrients (the 3 numbers on the product) of 3-1-2 or 4- 1-2. Many lawns do not need extra phosphorus (the middle number), so a product like a 15-0-15 would be appropriate. Only a soil test will give you this kind of information. A soil test will also tell you if you need to apply lime to reduce the acidity of the soil. Soil testing information is available at every county Texas AgriLife Extension office.

Prolong your cool-season flower display by removing dead blossoms and faded flowers before they set seed. Fertilize your annual and perennial flowers regularly with a high nitrogen fertilzer.

Nurseries are stocked up with fresh plants for your yard, and now is the time to be planting summer flowers. When purchasing annual or perennial flowers, or vegetables, be sure to also get plenty of compost or other type of organic matter to add to the soil. You may have added some last year, but it quickly breaks down in our hot summers. You can never add too much organic matter to our soils!

Resist the temptation to buy plants without having a definite place in the landscape to place it. Impulse buying and planting can lead to a hodgepodge look to your yard, and poor plant performance.

SEED ANNUALS

For bright, bold color in your flower beds, now is the time to seed annual flowers, including amaranthus, celosia, cosmos, marigold, portulaca, zinnia, gomphrena, and several other warm-season annual flowers. These can be sown directly in the beds where they are to grow.

The ones mentioned require full sun for best results. Keep seeded areas moist until seeds germinate. Thin seedlings as soon as they are large enough to transplant so the remaining plants will not be crowded.

For quicker color, purchase annuals already started. Select short, compact plants, preferably ones that have not yet begun to flower. Remove flowers and buds to give the plants an opportunity to become well established before flowering.

Many kinds of perennials can be set out now. A some good types include columinbe (Texas Gold), sedums, butterfly weed, turk's cap, coreopsis, salvias (so many different types), purple coneflower, hostas, phlox, daylilies, gaura, and Rudbeckia.

Wait a couple of more weeks until the soil has warmed up before planting heat-loving tropical plants like elephant ears, caladiums, firebush, hardy hibiscus, esperanza, purple fountaingrass, copper plants and lantana. However, you can go ahead and purchase them as they become available. Ornamental grasses make wonderful accents in the flowerbed and landscape. Some examples include Miscanthus (maiden grass), Pennisetum, and muhly grasses (Muhlenbergia) and Mexican feather grass (Stipa). For shady, woodland areas, inland sea oats (Chasmanthium) is an ideal choice. Note that inland sea oats multiply by reseeding, so plant them where it is okay for them to spread and naturalize, or be prepared to remove seed heads before they mature and shatter.

And don't forget herbs. Whether you have a bed dedicated to these fragrant culinary essentials, or mix them in with your flowers and vegetables, they make great additions to the garden.

There's still time to plant many vegetables, including bush and pole beans, cucumber, cantaloupe, pumpkin, summer & winter squash, and watermelons from seed; and transplants of tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. All these should be seeded or transplanted right away for best results. Okra, sweet potatoes and Southern peas do better with warmer soil and therefore should be planted a bit later in the month.

Keith Hansen is Smith County Horticulturist with Texas AgriLife Extension Service. His Web page is EastTexasGardening.tamu.edu.

His blog is http://agrilifeblo-gs.tamu.edu/mt/etg Texas AgriLife Extension Service educational programs are open to all individuals without regard to race, color, sex, disability, religion, age or national origin.

Keith Hansen
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