News Article for April 28, 2008:
It never fails that when I work in my own lawn I find that the topics for my news column are unlimited.
It is not too late to trim back your azaleas but you should get right to it if you do not want to cut off the blooms for next year. It was while I was pruning on one very prolific azalea that I noticed a infestation of lace bugs.
Lace bugs are small insects that get on the back of the leaves and will suck the chlorophyll right out of the leaf removing the green color. This damage will appear as a white frosting over the leaf. You unfortunately cannot wipe it off.
The lace bugs laid eggs in the crevices of the leaves last fall and are emerging now with the warmer weather. I would suggest that you spray with Orthene or Acephate for control. You can have several generations through the year so keep an eye on the foliage for damage.
You can look on the underside of the leaf and you will see the bugs with their long lace wings. You will also see that they leave their small specks of dark, blotchy fecal deposits on the underside of the leaves.
Another discovery I made in my azaleas was azalea leaf gall. I had a few calls about this condition last week.
Azalea leaf gall is a very ugly fleshy growth that attacks the leaves and flowers. It causes the infected part to become thickened and curled. The galls will be pale green to white and I have seen some of them pink.
The galls will become hard and brown and will fall to the ground if left on the plant. I would suggest that you pick them off and throw them in the trash and not on the ground. If they fall to the ground they only act as a source of inoculation to repeat again next year.
There are no good controls for this so you will just have to pick them off.
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Peaches are a challenge to grow here. We get a lot of late frost that can wipe out the crop in one night and then the drainage is marginal at best. You have to spray peaches weekly until they are ripe to keep the worms out and the diseases off.
Since they do require such tender loving care usually the people willing to give the TLC are not happy when I tell them to knock off most of the set fruit. Peaches will set way more fruit than a tree can support and grow to a 3” to 4” fruit. If you like small peaches, keep them all, but if you like the big juicy peaches you will have to thin.
Thinning can be accomplished by hand picking fruit so that you have one fruit every 8 inches. Now if you have very many trees that becomes pretty impractical. The veterans will take a rubber hose and hit the branches and knock off peaches until they achieve the appropriate spacing. A mature tree can support up to 800 fruit.
I know how silly you are going to feel hitting that tree, but you will be glad you did come harvest.
For more information on these or related topics contact Kenny at 686-3020.