Category Archives: Garden Tips

Know Your Plant’s Cold Tolerance

October 18th, 2022 by earthworksjax Garden Tips, Gardening

Maintaining a lush tropical landscape requires learning about your plant’s cold tolerance and the threat of chilling temperatures above freezing. When purchasing plants for your landscape, it is essential to know which USDA hardiness zone they’re growing in and each variety’s cold hardiness rating. For instance, the large geographic area of Jacksonville, Florida, is USDA Hardiness Zone 9a (20F- 25F) and borders 8a (15-20F) to the West. If the plants in your landscape and collection cannot tolerate temperatures as low as the minimum temperatures then they aren’t considered hardy for Jacksonville’s zone. View USDA Hardiness zones from around the country and find yours by zip code at USDA Agricultural Research Service.

Avoid planting your most cold-sensitive plants with northern exposure and consider other more hardy plantings around them as wind blocks if you must. It’s common knowledge that houseplants and tropicals won’t survive freezing temperatures. However, there is less appreciation for the fact that chilling temperatures within specific ranges above freezing can also result in plant stress, damage, and death.

“A chilling temperature is any temperature that is cold enough to cause plant injury but not cold enough to freeze the plant,” according to the University of Florida/IFAS. “These temperatures usually range from just above 32°F to about 59°F. Chilling injury to tropical foliage plants is also dependent on the duration of exposure to a chilling temperature.”

Plants are triggered to begin acclimation or hardening in Autumn as daylight hours, and temperatures decline. Non-native plants in Jacksonville’s humid subtropical gardens face more significant fluctuations of temperature in the chilling temperature range than our neighbors in Central and South Florida’s tropical hardiness zones. While Jacksonville has an average October temperature between 81F- 66F, forecasts call for a low of 46F with 10-15mph wind on October 18, 2022. Chilling temperature plant damage can appear as wilting, yellowing, reddish-brown spots, and even mushiness.

“Tropical and subtropical crops such as ageratum, alternanthera, angelonia, basil, celosia, cleome, coleus, cosmos, lantana, pentas, poinsettia, portulaca, sweet potato vine, vinca and zinnia are classified as cold-sensitive because their development stops at a base temperature of 46 F or higher,” according to Michigan State University. “Another group of greenhouse crops is classified as cold-intermediate (or cold-temperate) crops as their development stops at moderately low temperatures of 40 to 45 F. These crops include calendula, dahlia, geranium, impatiens, lobelia, some petunia cultivars, verbena and wax begonia.” Many of our local gardens contain a mix of these plants and others with varied cold sensitivity.

Consider our Overwintering and Indoor Propagation article if you are preparing to protect your houseplants and tropicals during a cold spell and before freezing temperatures are forecast for your area. If chilling temperature damage occurs, ensure the affected plants are watered and avoid the temptation of fertilization, which can stimulate new growth and further stress the plant.

For more information on your plant’s cold tolerance how to protect your plants every season and for comprehensive solutions to your specific lawn, garden and landscaping needs contact Earth Works of Jacksonville at 904-996-0712. Earth Works operates a retail Garden Center/Plant Nursery in Jacksonville and provides landscaping, hardscaping, water features, lawn care service, lawn spraying, and drainage solutions.

Earth Works proudly serves clients in Northeast Florida, including Jacksonville, Ponte Vedra Beach, Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach, Jacksonville Beach, Nocatee, St. Johns, Fleming Island, Orange Park, Middleburg, Green Cove Springs, Amelia Island, Fernandina, and St. Augustine.

October Gardening Tips For Florida

October 16th, 2022 by earthworksjax Garden Tips, Gardening

Consider these October Gardening tips for improved lawn and garden enjoyment during the cooler months ahead of next Spring. These tips are specifically for Northeast Florida gardeners and are heavily influenced by weather changes, including the end of the rainy season, fewer daylight hours, and a 10F degree drop in temperature.

-Pay attention to your plants watering needs as October’s monthly rainfall averages 4′”, a significant drop from rainy season averages between June and September. Although it’s chillier with fewer hours of sunlight, October can still register highs in the 80s, accompanied by windy conditions that rapidly dry out the soil. And remember irrigation schedule water restrictions fall from twice to once per week watering when Daylight Savings Time ends on Sunday, November 5, per the City of Jacksonville Ordinance Code Chapter 366.

-You can fertilize your perennials, bulbs, citrus, palms, and other select trees and shrubs during October. However, how often and what time of year to fertilize for maximum benefit can depend on the type of plant and type of fertilizer NPK assay and whether it’s a liquid, powder, or granular. Even though Florida county Fertilizer blackout periods around the state are typically lifted by the end of September, continue being careful to overuse fertilizers and apply them correctly, as they can harm your plants and cause environmental damage.

-If applying a Winterizer fertilizer on our Florida warm-season grasses, do so with a nitrogen-free product and apply before dormancy.

-Consider applying organic mulch to your gardening beds to protect bare roots and soil from falling temperatures and nutrient runoff. Earth Works Lawn Care can provide you a mulching quote.

-Tender warm-season bulbs and tubers such as caladiums and gladiolus can be dug up, inspected for fungus, cleaned of dirt, and stored in peat moss, perlite, or vermiculite in a cool location until Spring planting season.

-Overseeding with ryegrass can be done in October to add Winter color to your dormant warm-season grass lawn. Both perennial and annual ryegrass is available for those considering these October Gardening Tips.

-Houseplants kept outside during the warmer months should be examined for pests and treated accordingly. Continue with your fertilization requirements for your houseplants and prepare to move them and other tender tropicals indoors ahead of any air temperature drops below their healthy growing requirements.

-Prepare the ground for Fall herbs and vegetable garden beds, perennials, and Spring bulbs. Add compost and soil amendments specifically formulated for the growing requirements of your plantings. For the veggie beds, consider planting beans, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, collards, cucumbers, endive, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, mustard, onions, radishes, summer squash, and turnips.

-Continue weeding warm-season weeds, and if considering using a pre-emergent herbicide, apply ahead of the seed germination of cold-season weeds. “Regardless of where you live, the application window for fall pre-emergents should be when temperatures are below 70 degrees and dropping,” according to Sod Solutions. “It should be noted that a pre-emergent herbicide that is applied before you overseed in the fall will keep your seed from growing.”

-Avoid trimming your trees and shrubs except for instances of dieback, disease, and damage. Trimming your trees and shrubs at the wrong time can jeopardize leaf and flower buds that have already been set, resulting in poorer growth and blooms in Spring depending on whether they set their blooms on old or new wood.

-October is a terrific time to plant trees and shrubs as the cooler temperatures reduce stress and facilitate faster acclimation.

-Monitor the water temperature in your koi pond and reduce the amount of food they are fed and consider lower protein formulations available at the Earth Works garden center.

-Aeration and Top Dressing renews your lawn soil with beneficial microbes, and the required micro-nutrients improve oxygen supply to plant roots, and reduce soil erosion and runoff. Earth Works’ lawn care division provides this service. Our garden center likewise has many varieties of high quality soils for your gardening needs.

-This is a good time to begin planning any landscaping projects on your mind with a member of our landscape design team at Earth Works. Along with being a good time to plant it can reduce wait times for ordering products and beats the Spring rush.

For more specific October gardening tips speak directly with a member of our Earth Works Garden Center staff. And for comprehensive solutions to your specific lawn, garden and landscaping needs contact Earth Works of Jacksonville at 904-996-0712. Earth Works operates a retail Garden Center/Plant Nursery in Jacksonville and provides landscaping, hardscaping, drainage solutions, water features, lawn care service, and lawn spraying.

May Lawn And Garden Tips 2022

May 1st, 2022 by earthworksjax Garden Tips, Gardening

MAY LAWN AND GARDEN TIPS: WEATHER

We open May Lawn and Garden Tips recognizing that Mothers Day arrives on the second Sunday of this month the second and final month of Spring before the heat and showers of Summer arrive. Daily high and low temperatures increase 5-10 degrees, typically averaging between 70°F and 87°F. As traffic at the neighborhood garden center suggests, May is prime time for working in your yard, and tending to the lawn and garden ahead of Summer. While April rainfall was 5.22 inches and on paper exceeding the 2.93 inch average for the month, 4.5 inches of it came down in only today’s, April 7 & 17. Heavy rain for a few hours followed by days of drought conditions results in soil erosion and stormwater runoff that isn’t optimum for landscapes or the environment. The other four days of rain in April were clustered together with long dry spells most of the month. Our lawns and gardens do better with three weekly rain events that for best results require supplemental irrigation and hand watering during dry periods. Don’t wait until after the damage is done. Look for signs of heat stress and supplement your plant’s water supply, which besides hydration reduces their susceptibility to pests and disease. May is normally slightly drier than April ahead of nearly tripling the rainfall during June and July, when monthly rainfall averages are 6.5 inches. Hurricane Season starts June 1.

MAY LAWN AND GARDEN TIPS: PLANTINGS
Suppose you didn’t get your pollinator-attracting flowering perennials and annuals planted in April. May is a good time in the middle of Spring to keep planting. A few of the long list of bloomers ready to pick out and plant from the Earth Works garden center include Begonias, bougainvillea, coleus, coral honeysuckle, cuphea, hibiscus, lantana, mandevilla, milkweed, passion vines, roses, and salvia. Did we mention palm trees? Yes, we have a wide selection of both small and large, container and field-grown palm trees in stock with designers and staff that can pair you up with the right variety. How about houseplants? Did you make it to our Houseplant Social? Lots of great houseplants are in stock.

It’s not too late to grow herbs and vegetables. While it can be a little late for tomatoes that don’t like the oppressive heat of summer switch from planting seeds to growing seedlings that already have a good start in their growing cycle. Container gardening is a terrific option for starting a wide variety of plants. It allows you to move them to varied light positions and see where they are best suited for your landscape design. Earth Works garden center, landscape designers, and lawn care staff are available to assist you in developing a beautiful, healthy, and manageable lawn and garden.

MAY LAWN AND GARDEN TIPS: PRUNING

In May, your plants should already be putting out new growth, and for ones that aren’t, look for Winter cold, disease, or parasite damage. Prune your spring flowering plants and hedge plants such as azaleas and oleander back after blooming to allow maximum growth ahead of their next bloom cycle on new growth. Remove dead, damaged, and diseased growth. Consider sterilizing your lawn and garden equipment with diluted chlorine/bleach solution to avoid transferring fungus, disease, pests, and parasites from one shrub or plant to another.

MAY LAWN AND GARDEN TIPS: FERTILIZATION

Your fertilization needs are going to depend on the nutrient requirements of your specific plants, soil composition, and fertility. Native plants are adapted to local soil conditions and need less fertilization than plants categorized as moderate and heavy feeders. Heavy feeders such as fruits, vegetables and flowering ornamentals benefit from weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly fertilization that can include a combination of foliar sprays, teas, and time-release granular. We recommend Espoma Organic’s full line of products enriched with beneficial mycorrhizae fungi for improving root function. We stock Espoma Organics Biotone for new plantings planting and other formulations to fertilize established plants.

“Macronutrients are essential for plant growth and a good overall state of the plant,” according to AGQ Labs. “The primary macronutrients are Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), and Potassium (K). Of the 60 chemical elements that comprise plants, 16 of them are essential. Of those 16, some are extracted from the air in the form of CO2 or water. These are carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. If for now we set aside leaf fertilization and the three above-mentioned elements, the remaining 13 are extracted from the soil. These are divided into macronutrients and micronutrients, all of which are essential for crops.”

Soil pH can bind up nutrients, making them unavailable in slow-release granular. In contrast, foliar sprays deliver those same micronutrients to the plant. Thus, it’s also essential to know your soil pH, a free test with recommendations for amendments where necessary by the University of Florida is encouraged. For more information, read “Soil Testing in Northeast Florida.”

MAY LAWN & GARDEN TIPS: PEST CONTROL

If your soil forms crusts and pools water, it’s compacted and not allowing proper percolation or nutrient absorption. Consider doing core aeration and top dressing to increase the organic matter in your soil and improve soil retention and the bioavailability of micro-nutrients. Be on the lookout for signs of weeds, insects, mold, and fungus in the lawn and garden. We recommend treating Leaf miners and other varieties of sapsuckers with Spinosad, a derivative of the soil bacterium Saccharopolyspora available in Capt. Jacks Deadbug Brew.
Protect pollinators and other beneficial insects by reducing reliance on synthetic controls with spot treatments of organic solutions of neem oil and the beneficial bacteria strain Bacillus thuringiensis sold by Bonide as BT. Be on the lookout for pests and address their potential threats in advance of infestations.

When using weed and feed products in May avoid those with a pre-emergent herbicide and opt instead for the post-emergent as temperatures are above 55F. Reduce plant stress and susceptibility to pests by planting in the best light position and fertilizing appropriately for that specific plant variety. Get a quote for Earth Works Lawn Fertilization and Pest Control service.

For comprehensive solutions to your specific lawn, garden, and landscaping needs, contact Earth Works of Jacksonville online or at 904-996-0712.
Earth Works operates a retail Garden Center/Plant Nursery in Jacksonville and provides landscaping, hardscaping, water features, lawn care service, lawn spraying, and drainage solutions.
Proudly serving clients in Northeast Florida, including Jacksonville, Ponte Vedra Beach, Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach, Jacksonville Beach, Nocatee, St. Johns, Fleming Island, Orange Park, Middleburg, Green Cove Springs, Amelia Island, Fernandina, and St. Augustine.