Dear Neil: Since the extreme cold of February, 2021, we have had trouble with this one live oak. One fork has sparse leaves that are also yellow. Should we have that fork removed? Leave it alone? Or, should we have the entire tree removed?
If you want to try to save the tree, you should have an ISA certified arborist look closely at your tree. From the angles I can see, I have great concerns. It appears to me that the damage is to the left trunk. If you had that portion removed, you would leave a gaping wound on the trunk where the cut was made. The tree would be badly misshapen, plus the portion that would be left would still be crowding into the other tree you have in your landscape. I would be concerned that the live oak would eventually split in spite of your efforts. In fact, even the remaining portion looks yellowed from my angle, so odds are that the entire tree isnât very healthy. If it were mine, and unless a certified arborist could show me reasons to the contrary, Iâd be having it removed.
Dear Neil: What is the reason for so many native redcedars dying locally? Iâve never seen it like this.
Nor have I. I’ve been doing a good bit of research on this problem and will have a longer report in my free Thursday newsletter e-gardens within the next couple of weeks. You can sign up for it at my website (https://neilsperry.com/e-gardens/). For now, though, Dr. Kevin Ong of Texas A&M’s Plant Disease Clinic told me he suspects it’s environmental trauma from the winter storm of 2021 followed by two summers of heat and drought.
Steve Houser, founder and owner of Arborilogical Services in Dallas, a certified arborist and one of the first Texas Arborists of the Year, told me that his arborists are feeling this is damage of cedar bark beetles. They are finding tunneling just below the outer bark of dead and dying trees as well as pencil-lead-sized exit holes in the wood. Steve concurs that much of this is due to the stresses put on these trees by the extremes in weather recently. His crews have seen more of it in the past 12 months than ever before.
Dear Neil: What care does this plant require? I bought it some time ago at a local grocery. They donât know what it is, nor do I, so I canât look it up.
Iâd say you have been doing quite well with it owing to its size and great color. This is Dracaena Janet Craig compacta. Both the Missouri Botanical Gardens and North Carolina State Universityâs fine botanical website show it as a cultivar of Dracaena fragrans. Iâve long listed regular Janet Craig as one of my favorite houseplants. Itâs easily grown in interior conditions of modest light and âpeopleâ temperatures and humidities. This one is no different. Iâve just found it to be a little awkward to use because of its dramatically upright habit and tightly compact foliage. However, your plant looks great.
All I could offer would be that you pot it into a handsome terracotta container with a matching saucer. Use loose, highly organic potting soil and place it where youâve had it, since it seems to be really happy with that location. I might be tempted to get two more of varying heights to grow alongside it for interest. It would also help to wash the leaves with two very soft sponges, Have a bucket of warm, lightly soapy water. Wring them almost dry, then put one sponge in one hand, the other in the other, and pull them simultaneously down each leaf. Repeat with fresh water to eliminate any soap residue.
Dear Neil: This weed/vine/grass is overtaking the bare spots in my St. Augustine lawn where chinch bugs killed the St. Augustine last summer. Glyphosate works well where it has taken over fully, but Iâm hesitant to spray that around my St. Augustine because I obviously donât want to kill it. What might work?
Well, maybe Iâm missing something, but your photo certainly appears to be very healthy plain old bermudagrass. It looks like it might have been pulled up a few minutes in the heat before the photo was taken since the leaf blades are rolled. Are you sure you want to kill it? If you let it do the filling in, and assuming your goal is to get turf in the bare areas as quickly as possible, it would accomplish that task within a month or two. Then, the next phase would be to let the St. Augustine repopulate the space. It is the more dominant of the two grasses. It will crowd out the bermuda if you will protect it from the chinch bugs in the summers.
Dear Neil: I saved seeds from my leatherleaf mahonias and have planted them into 1-gallon nursery pots. Is that the way they are started? Do they come true from seeds?
Thatâs the way nurseries start their plants, so you will soon have nice seedlings. Yes, they will come true and give you the very same genetics of the mother plant. Thatâs assuming youâre talking about the regular species Mahonia bealei. Youâll recognize them the moment they start growing. Theyâll look like miniature versions of the mother plant. Be patient â theyâll come along slowly compared to many other plants you grow from seed. They prefer morning sun and afternoon shade. Keep them moist, and fertilize them every few weeks with a diluted, water-soluble, high-nitrogen plant food. Youâll have plants large enough to set out into your gardens by the end of next growing season.