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freeze

What NOT to Do in the Garden

November 22, 2019

Frost has left your yard looking kind of dead. You hear the neighbors blowing leaves and see them busily tidying up—you feel guilty that you’re going out for a hike or sitting inside dreaming of next spring rather than doing yardwork. But you may be doing your landscape a favor by doing less!

Leaves that need to be raked, bagged or not ?

What to do with leaves?
Do you really need to rake up and dispose of leaves?
Leave them! In many cases, you can simply leave them where they fall: in wooded areas, under trees or shrubs, on your vegetable garden, flower beds—in fact, almost anywhere but a lawn, leaves can act as a mulch and eventual soil enrichment.
• Move them where needed. If the leaves are constantly blowing back onto your lawn, or are matting and smothering groundcovers or small plants, move them to other areas where they can break down in peace.
• Shred them with a shredder or lawn mower. Shredding will help leaves stay in place and break down more quickly. Using a mulching mower on your lawn before leaves get too deep will save you from raking there, too.
• The bottom line: If you must rake, save your leaves in a compost pile or in an unobtrusive area of your yard to spread back on your planting beds once they break down.

What about leaf blowers?
If you must move leaves around, consider that these concerns—Electric or gas blowers may:
• Harm beneficial insects, small animals and their habitats
• Damage plants and shrubs
• Create noise and air pollution.

What about pruning?
With the exception of diseased or damaged wood, leave pruning shrubs and trees until late winter—or immediately after bloom in the case of trees and shrubs that bloom on “old” wood.

Evening primrose_Oenothera biennis_seed pods_Andreas Rockstein_CC BY-SA 2.0_Flickr
Consider leaving seed heads for awhile.

What about annual and perennial plants?
Although you may be tempted to cut everything back in the interest of neatness, consider leaving dried seed heads for winter interest, self-sowing, and feeding the birds—at least until the seeds are gone or stems start to break down. One exception, of course, is if plants seed so aggressively that they become nuisances. Consider removing such plants and replacing them with more desirable alternatives.

Enjoy your break from yardwork!
Take time to reflect on what is working well in your garden and what needs rethinking. How does your yard look at this time of year? Does it have good “bones” that make it attractive in all four seasons, or do you need to consider adding some new plants that look good in fall or winter? Do you need to remove failing or overgrown trees or shrubs? Is there too much lawn? You still have time to plant this fall—until the ground is frozen—or start planning for next year!

Take time to evaluate your landscape.

Article by Debbie Green, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer

For more information about fall planting:

https://chatham.ces.ncsu.edu/2017/09/fall-is-the-best-time-to-plant-trees-and-shrubs/

 

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Categories General Gardening Tags compost, fall garden chores, freeze, mulch, pruning, winter garden chores

Abiotic Plant Disorders: You be the Detective!

July 16, 2019

We usually think of plant problems as due to pests or diseases: Biotic agents! These living organisms include insects, disease causing pathogens, nematodes, parasitic plants, and viruses. But abiotic—nonliving agents—can also injure our landscape plants. If you think about it, you’ve probably lost plants to many of these, which include environmental extremes in moisture and/or temperature; mechanical damage, such as severe root cutting; and chemical factors, such as high soil salinity or herbicide damage.
Accurate diagnosis is key to remedying any plant problem, biotic, abiotic, or both!

How to diagnosis?
• Identify the plants: Determine the botanical name: genus, species and family—plant labels usually have plant genus and species and with that information you can look up the plant family.
• Identify the symptoms: Chlorotic (yellowing), necrotic (blackening or death), or distorted plant parts. Be thorough and accurate!
• Inspect the whole plant: Examine all parts of the plant, not just the injured area.
• Look for patterns: Are symptoms uniform throughout the plant or scattered?
• Inspect the site: Is the soil well-drained, is there recent evidence of disturbance, how long has the plant been in the ground?
• Do you have any records of plant care—watering, fertilizing, pruning, spraying?
• Identify likely causes from the information collected— Keep in mind that there may be multiple causes!
• Collect samples and submit for testing to rule out disease or insect problems at the North Carolina Plant Disease and Insect Clinic.

Examples and symptoms of common environmental abiotic plant problems:

Water—Too much or too little—both can damage plants! Waterlogging kills roots if oxygen levels in the root zone are too low, but excess soil moisture is more commonly a factor in root disease. At the other extreme, insufficient moisture can result in scorch symptoms on foliage, stunting, leaf yellowing, leaf drop, early Fall color; and death of flowers and fruits.

Flooding
Drought Damage to Trees

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunscald usually occurs in late winter or early spring when sunlight heats tree bark during the day. This causes the water in the ground to start to rise from the roots. With freezing nighttime temperatures, this water freezes within the bark tissue and an elongated canker can form that appears discolored and sunken. Cracking and peeling bark may follow. It may be the next spring or summer when new growth occurs before the damage shows. Tree with thin bark such as beech (Fagus), dogwood (Cornus), honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos), linden (Tilia), mountain ash (Sorbus americana) and sugar maple (Acer saccharum), and newly planted trees are especially susceptible.

Frost Crack …. University of Michigan

Wind moving across leaves takes moisture from them, sometimes in excessive amounts resulting in a scorched appearance. Evergreen trees and shrubs are particularly susceptible to this during the winter when the roots cannot extract water from frozen soil.

Wind

Low temperature—Plants have critical temperature levels at or below which they may experience frost or freezing injury. Plant cells are injured when the temperature falls below a critical level for a species. Injury at above freezing temperatures is called chilling injury. Such injury may affect any plant parts of both evergreen and deciduous plants. Young leaves are most sensitive to lower temperatures; injured leaves look water soaked and black. Flowering plants putting on new growth are especially susceptible. It may be a few weeks before you see damage from cold temperatures. To minimize injury from low temperatures be sure to select plants that are hardy in your area—Zones 5b to 7a, depending where you live in Buncombe county.

Freezing Temperatures

Article by Bob Wardwell, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer

Abiotic Disorders of Plants  https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/extension-gardener-handbook/5-diseases-and-disorders#section_heading_7612

Sunscald of Woody Plants www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/gardens-gardening/your-garden/help-for-the-home-gardener/advice-tips-resources/pests-and-problems/environmental/sunscald/sunscald-of-woody-plants.aspx

Abiotic Disorders of Landscape Plants: A Diagnostic Guide, Costello, L., et al., University of California Press, February 2014.

How to submit a sample for Insect and disease identification: https://projects.ncsu.edu/cals/plantpath/extension/clinic/submit-sample.html

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Categories General Gardening Tags abiotic, Diagnosis, drought, freeze, sunscald, wind

Warm Season Vegetables: Just Because They Are for Sale Does NOT Mean it is Time to Plant Them!

April 25, 2019

In late April, walking through the garden section of many stores you’ll see tomato, pepper, squash, and cucumber plants for sale. Does this mean it is safe to plant them now?

Freeze Dates: Data on last spring freeze dates in Western North Carolina are critical to the survival of the warm season plants. In this region of the state, tomatoes, peppers—and often cucumbers and squash—are grown from transplants, not direct seeding.  Immediately after planting, they are exposed to the see-sawing air temperature fluctuations that occur during this time of year.

Frosted Leaves

The dates after which there is only a 10 percent chance of a spring freeze (32° F) based on data collected by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from 1981-2010 for selected locations in Buncombe County Western North Carolina are:

Downtown Asheville          April 27

Asheville Airport                 May 4

Fletcher                               May 7

Black Mountain                  May 11

Swannanoa                        May 12

Bent Creek                         May 13

To be safe, then, Buncombe County Extension Master GardenersSM recommend not planting these crops in the ground until Mother’s Day each year. For your specific location and the weather forecast for any particular year, you may choose to plant earlier or later!

If you do choose to transplant earlier, be prepared to provide some type of frost protection when the temperature is expected to go below 36° F.  Techniques for frost protection include covering growing beds or rows with a floating row cover (supported by stakes or wire to keep the material from directly touching the plants). Protect individual plants with plastic milk jugs with the bottoms removed, paper caps, or water-holding walls.

Floating row cover tunnel_Carol Jacobs-Carre_CC BY-NC-ND 2.0_Flickr
Floating row cover

We also recommend “hardening-off” to toughen up your plants before putting them into the ground. Gently stroking your plants a few seconds every day while they are still indoors is helpful. Starting about seven days before you intend to plant, on warm days place your transplants—while still in their growing containers—in the general vicinity of the garden in a protected area to expose them to your intended growing conditions. This is especially important for any plants grown under greenhouse conditions.  You will need to make sure they have adequate water and bring them indoors at night to ensure their survival.

Article by Bob Wardwell, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer

Learn more:

Hardening off

https://polk.ces.ncsu.edu/2019/03/simple-but-necessary-hardening-off-vegetable-seedlings/

Western North Carolina Planting Calendar for annual vegetables

https://extensiongardener.ces.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/NC-Vegetable-Planting-Guide-1.pdf?fwd=no

US Normals Data (1981-2010) for Buncombe County Weather Stations:

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/orders/cdo/1712624.pdf

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Categories Vegetables & Fruits Tags freeze, garden planning, tomatoes, vegetable gardens

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Blog edited and published by Debbie Green and Bob Wardwell, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteers.

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