February 2020 Articles

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February Garden Tips

February Garden Tips Dr. Heather Kirk-Ballard, Consumer Horticulture Specialist ● Add color to your landscape with cool-season bedding plants, such as alyssum, calendula, cabbage, dianthus, gerbera daisy, hollyhock, lobelia, pansy, petunias, snapdragons and violas. ● Plant gladiolus in late February in south Louisiana. Prolong the blooming season by planting at two- to three-week intervals for a couple of months. ● Prune your roses on or around Valentine’s Day and begin a preventative spray program alternating fungicides for blackspot and powdery mildew. Finish pruning evergreens and summer-blooming shrubs — not azaleas, hydrangeas or spireas. ● Fertilize shrubs with one-quarter pound of compete fertilizer per square yard and fertilize trees using 1 to 2 pounds per year of age. ● February is the ideal time to fertilize trees. ● Trim back dormant ornamental grasses in late February. It is important to remove the brown leaves before the new growth emerges and mixes with the dead growth. ● Watch azaleas in February for lace bugs. They cause the foliage to have numerous small white spots, and they feed underneath lower foliage. Control them with horticultural oil sprays or Orthene. ● Look for Louisiana Super Plants at your local nurseries. Louisiana Super Plants are selected for their outstanding performance around the state and are “university tested and industry approved.” Cool-season bedding plant Super Plants that can be planted now include: Homestead Purple verbena, Swan columbines, Redbor kale, Camelot foxgloves, Amazon dianthus, Jolt series dianthus, Sorbet violas, Supertunia Vista Bubblegum petunia and Mesa gaillardia. Hardy shrub Louisiana Super Plants selections that can be planted now include Belinda’s Dream roses, Drift roses, Shishi Gashira camellias, Conversation Piece azaleas and Leslie Ann sasanquas.