Things to Do in May

We are in the middle of spring and everything is beautiful. The rains in March have helped us out a lot. Our lakes have more water in them and all calls for water rationing, have been called off for now. I have mixed feelings about the drought, if we were told that we had to conserve water, then we would be forced to learn better watering techniques. Be prepared for a hot dry summer. Start watering weekly now so that the roots will go deep into the ground where the moisture is.

May is normally our last cool month; finish your heavy gardening projects now. As your neighbors ask you why your garden smells so much tell them it is because you care for the environment and that you garden using Organic Products. Can you say: "GreenSense"?

The Lawn

Weeds: We have had many customers complain about an excessive amount of weeds this spring. As you drive around you will notice that every lawn has weeds this year. Our mild winter has given seeds plenty of time to germinate. My suggestion is to mow more often using a grass catcher so that if the weeds have all ready produced more seeds they will be colleted and can be placed in the compost pile.

Do not scalp the lawn, but lower the blade height just a little, so that you will force the grass to grow vertically and fill in the bare spots.

Use White Vinegar, 10 or 20 percent and not the five percent that you find at the supermarket. Mix ¼ of a cup of soap per gallon of vinegar and using an all-plastic sprayer, apply this solution carefully on the weed. On a hot day you can actually see the weed turn brown within minutes.

Seed/Overseed/Sod: Later this month you can put out bermuda seed to help thicken your lawn or to start a new lawn. Sod can be put out at any time now.

Brown Patch: Most new lawns develop Brown Patch, when newly installed, due to the amount of watering need to get the seeds to germinate and the roots to develop. Brown patch appears as circular spots that are a yellowish color.

We have taken Howard Garrett's suggestion and have applied corn meal over newly seeded and sodded areas and have seen faster germination and fewer fungal problems. Apply cornmeal at a rate of 10 pounds per thousand once a week on new lawns.

If you have Brown Patch: use baking soda or better yet, Actinovate or Potassium Bicarbonate. Baking soda and Potassium Bicarbonate go out at a rate of three to four tablespoons mixed in one gallon of water over 400 square feet. Actinovate, which is a powder, goes out dry, at a rate of one pound per 1000 square feet.

Aeration: After our heavy rains have passed us by aerate the lawn using a core aerator. The core aerator actually removes plugs from the soil. If you rent an aerator or have some one come out to your lawn make sure that the soil is not pushed in to the ground by the tines of the machine being used this will compact the soil even more.

Fertilize: With the heavy rains and the spring growth the plants have to be hungry so, fertilize again. It is time for your quarterly application and the spring rains will help the fertilizer work its way into the soil. Use an organic fertilizer such as one of the GreenSense all Purpose fertilizers, apply at a rate of 20 pounds per 1000 square feet.

Microbes: To improve percolation and aeration as well as quick break down of your fertilizer and organic matter in the soil use Microbes. Try to apply the microbes immediately after fertilizing.

Beneficial Insects: Release Green Lace Wings, Trichogramma Wasp,Beneficial Nematodes to help control damaging insets.

Flowering Ornamentals: Start a regular fertilizing program so that the plant will be able to store enough nutrients for next springs flowers.

Your local nurseries should have a great selection of shrubs ready to be installed now. Know your plants water requirements. Know your soils ability to retain moisture, how fast does it dry out after a rain. Plant shrubs that are more drought tolerant in the drier areas of your landscape.

Annual Flowers: You can now plant your seasonal color using plants like: ageratum, begonia, blue daze, coleus, gaillardia, gomphrena, pentas, impatiens, lobelia, mexican heather, nicotiana, purslane, ornamental peppers, phlox, annual salvias, torenia, verbena and zinnia. I love using the small pepper plants as an annual flower, specially the chile pequin. Mockingbirds love eating these hot peppers.

Caladiums: Just a few more weeks now, wait until the soil temperature is in the 70's.

Buy enough bulbs for two plantings in the same area, this will ensure that your caladiums will be around through September.

Most caladiums should be planted in shade in well drained soil with plenty of organic matter. Strap Leaf Caladiums can be planted in full sun.

Perennials: My garden has more perennials then annuals and all of the landscapes that Carol Feldman, our Landscape Architect of choice, does exclude most annual flowers. Be patient with the perennials that you have in your garden some may wait until warmer temperatures before putting out new growth. Divided and transplant perennials to different areas of the landscape where you were used to planting annuals.

Find out which plants require you to remove spent blooms in order to keep blooming vigorously. If possible stay away from those. Fertilize on a regular bases with GreenSense Vegetable and Flower Food.

Roses: Watch roses for aphids. Spider mites and check blooms for thrips. You can use Neem Oils as a way of controlling these insects but only do so if you have an infestation other wise squish the bugs that are visible or release Lady Bugs. Establish a regular feeding schedule for your roses. Apply a foliar spray that contains kelp to help discourage aphids and spider mites.

Mulch: In order to conserve water make sure that all soils are covered with a thick layer of mulch. If you put down and maintain a three inch layer of hardwood, cedar, cypress or my favorite pine straw you will be able to keep the soil temperature from getting to hot and the moisture will not evaporate as quickly.

If you are on a budget call around for free or cheap tree trimmings, try Mesquite or Plano Waste, or tree services like Holcomb, Condren or Arbological Services. If you can compost what ever free mulch you find first, so that you can kill off any seeds from trees, like hackberries, do so for a couple of months before applying. Hurry!

If you did not have time to compost do not complain if you do get some weeds sprouting from this mulch, just be glad that you were able to save your plants.

Aracanaphobia (no) Arachmobhobia (no) Arachnophobia (maybe?) Spiders!

Someone from my family, I promised not to say who, was in the bathroom one night not to long ago. All of a sudden I heard a loud scream and as I ran to see what had happened, this family member came running out with his/her pants down at the ankles and pale as a ghost.

Not knowing if I should call an ambulance or the police, I asked him/her what was the problem. In a very shaken voice he/she said: "Spider, a spider was coming towards me. I couldn't move and it got closer and closer I tried to hurry but I couldn't finish and I thought that it was going to bite me."

Well, being the brave one of the family, I sent Alfred, my low to the ground eat first, think latter, fat dachshund, into the bathroom to seek and destroy. After a few seconds Alfred came out and I went in to inspect. I could not see anything, so I sat down on the toilet seat and from this point looked around for the killer spider. Sure enough in all its glory there it was in the corner, about three feet away from my foot, an itsy bitsy spider spinning its web.

I can understand why someone would be scared of a spider, I talk to people every day who think that they must kill spiders, but these small, non insects, eight-legged creatures are actually here to help us. It is only an urban legend to think that spiders are pranksters that spend the night spinning silk webs so that when we wake up in the morning and go out to get the newspaper we will walk through their webs to the delight of our neighbors.

There is nothing more amusing then to see someone try to get untangled from the web before the spider attacks us.

Spiders spin webs so they can catch insects for their food, even larger and stronger insects cannot escape. If there are no insects for the spider to catch then he would die of hunger. The more food available for the spiders, the higher the population of spiders will be. As the food source decreases so will the spider population.

In the men's bathroom at the nursery in the corner by the urinal there was a spider that formed his web. He had to be male, the sign on the door, clearly stated MEN'S ROOM. Anyway for about a week this spider, much to my amusement built his web. I never saw him catch anything. I never saw the carcass of another insect. One day I noticed that he was not moving, so I thumped his web. He did not move, I guessed that he must have died of hunger.

Spiders may be great architects, but they must not be very smart, if a spider can live anywhere in the nursery why would he pick the bathroom? Out in the nursery he could have found grasshoppers, flies, mosquitoes, pill bugs and many other insects. Spiders are very helpful and should be controlled only if they become a nuisance. I like to think of spiders in the house as indicators of other pest infestations. Control the other pest and spiders will simply die away.

The life span of spider can last for one season but to perpetuate the species from year to year they will lay eggs. These eggs make the web more visible and easier to find during household cleaning.

I remember when I was a kid that my two older brothers, Laurence and Fernando each caught a tarantula and a snake. Laurence who was the brain of the family was telling me that all spiders have fangs that have poison glands. They use these fangs to inject poison into the captured bodies. A spider's bite can kill insects and other small animals. A tarantula he said would easily kill a snake.

After my brothers placed bets on what creature would win, they put the snake and tarantula in a ring that was made from old bricks. As soon as the two creatures were put in front of each other the snake tried to wiggle away from the tarantula, the tarantula did not seem to be to interested in fighting with the snake and he to headed off in the opposite direction, but my brothers were sure that these two would fight and kept pushing them towards each other with branches from a nearby tree. Laurence kept pushing the tarantula until the tarantula decided that it's only way out was to climb on the stick, something he did very well. He did this so well that Laurence thought that he was about to be killed by it. So, he dropped the stick and jumped backwards, landing on Fernando who lost his balance and fell into the ring of death, where the snake was. Thud. Fernando tried to get up really fast, Laurence was rolling away from the attacking tarantula. Fernando got on his feet as fast as he could and looked down into the ring for the snake. It was not there. "Fernando, the snake is on your shirt," I screamed. Fernando looked like a cat chasing his tail as he started to scream: "Get it off. Get it off!"

"You talking to me? Are you talking to me?" I asked. (Robert Deniro lived across the street from us and stole my line, but that is ok.) I was not about to help and as he ran towards me, I ran towards the safety of my mother. Fernando finally ripped the shirt off of his back just as my mother came out the door to see what all the excitement was. After a couple of minutes Laurence came over to us; his forehead was bleeding from rolling on the ground. He said that he hit the trunk of a tree trying to escape the tarantula.

Fernando grabbed a broom and moved his t-shirt to see the snake. Yep, it was still there, but we failed to notice that it was flat, like a pancake. When Fernando fell into the ring he squished it. I think he had four bruises the next day from where my mother pinched him for tearing a good shirt and for torturing some of God's creatures.

Laurence had a bandage on his forehead for three days, two bruises from being pinched by my mother, and some scotch tape holding the frame of his glasses together.

I got pinched twice just for being there.

I think that statistics would show that more people are killed or hurt trying to run away from spiders then actually from a spider bite.

Now, I am not saying that all spiders are not dangerous in the US some spiders that harm people are: the Brown Recluse and the Black Widow.

The Black Widow is of the family Theridiidae, order Araneida. The female, about a half inch long, is glossy black, densely clothed with microscopic hairs, and marked with a characteristic red hourglass on the underside of the abdomen. The male, which is rarely seen, is smaller than the female and has four pairs of red marks along the sides of the abdomen. The Black Widow is found in the warmer regions in the United States and lives in a variety of natural and domestic habitats.

The Brown Recluse spider is a shy species that bites humans when trapped in clothing or rolled onto when people sleep in bed. The Brown Recluse, has a leg span of about 2.5 cm (one inch) and a dark violin-shaped design on its lighter back Persons bitten by the brown recluse usually do not feel pain for two to three hours. A sensitive person may feel pain immediately. A blister arises around the area of the bite. The local pain becomes intense with the wound sloughing tissue often down to the bone. Healing takes place slowly and may take several months to heal.

I did see the arm of a customer who had been bitten by a Brown Recluse. What seemed like an allergic reaction to a mosquito bite quickly grew to a diameter of about six inches and looked like 7-day-old pizza.

If the bite of a Brown Recluse spider is suspected, collect the spider and consult a physician immediately.