Tomato plants struggling? It’s not the heat
Thoughts? A:
Q: This year my tomato plants seem to have been sunburned. They are seemingly being helped by the 40 percent shade fabric I’ve hung to their west side.
Tomatoes can handle the Texas sun. That’s why we don’t grow them back under shade trees. I zoomed in as best I could on your photo, and it appears your plants have been hit by a dose of early blight (lower leaves yellow in blotches, then brown and crisp) and spider mites (lower leaves turning tan in finely mottled pattern).
You can confirm spider mites by thumping one of the infested leaves over a sheet of white paper. If mites are there, you will see tiny specks starting to move about freely.
Look for a general-purpose insecticide labeled for mite control and be sure to apply it to both top and bottom leaf surfaces. Note: Zooming in on your photo I also see marigolds to the right of your tomato plants. They are the all-time favorite hosts of spider mites. I would not advise you to plant those two crops near one another!
Q: Maybe it was the last two cold winters. The top half of my crape myrtle is dead. The bottom half is green and has new growth. Can the dead part be removed, or does it need to be cut off at the ground?
A:
All the dead trunks need to be cut completely to the ground. That’s probably going to be difficult among all the new shoots, but do the best you can as soon as you can. If you end up cutting it all back to the ground, the plant will put out many new shoots in a hurry. From that point on, you can retrain your plant into an attractive new form. You just don’t want to have dead stubs left in place.
Q: Our 3-year-old peach trees developed a fungus last summer, which resulted in the leaves drying up, turning black and falling off. We were advised it was a fungus, so we sprayed in the fall with a fungicide. The trees leafed out again last fall and this spring, and they have appeared to be healthy with lovely flowers and vigorous leaves. However, now they are wilting again. Your advice?
A:
Oh, for a photo! You didn’t mention if the possible fungus was a leaf spot, a mold or something
else. What you’re describing sounds much more like moisture stress than a leaf disease.
Peach tree borers could be tunneling around in the lower portions of the trunks as they very commonly do. They cut off the flow of water and nutrients up inside the trunks of the trees. Or the trees might just have gotten too dry one or more times.
I can’t get any closer without seeing the trees. I would suggest you take photos and fresh samples to a Texas Master Certified Nursery Professional at a member nursery of the Texas Nursery
and Landscape Association. I really don’t think this is purely a leaf problem.
Q: After the big freeze wiped out our xylosma shrubs, I replaced them with seven Nellie R. Stevens hollies. Six have done very well, but one is lagging behind dramatically. All are on the same drip irrigation system. What is going wrong?
A:
Nellie R. Stevens hollies are my favorite large shrubs. My wife and I live in a rural area with pecan and oak trees all around us. I have several dozen Nellie R. Stevens hollies
growing in various locations.
I’ve seen a handful of them perform exactly as your one plant is, and it has always been due to inadequate water and nitrogen. As soon as I stepped up the watering and feeding, their growth picked up dramatically. It could be your one plant isn’t getting enough water because the pressure isn’t delivering good water flow.
You may have read my comments here and elsewhere: I’m not a fan of drip irrigation the first year or two that new shrubs and trees have been planted. New plants need to be soaked by hand with a hose and a water breaker or water bubbler, and it needs to be done every two days during the first summer. Your plant has that slightly olive-drab look that a dry holly takes on.
Q: What would cause this circle in my zoysia lawn? It appears to be growing larger this year.
A:this
is large patch, formerly called “brown patch.” We are quite used to seeing it in St. Augustine lawns in the fall, but now it has become quite common in zoysia in the spring. It weakens the grass, but it won’t kill it.
Nonetheless, you certainly do want to control it by spraying with Azoxystrobin fungicide. That spray coupled with warmer conditions should help your lawn recover.
Q: We have three century plants (agaves) in front of our building that have all decided to bloom this year. We’ve had them for 15 years, and they were large plants when we bought them. Is there anything in their care that will either encourage or discourage flowering? They really are spectacular.
A:
Yes, they are stunning. Take some nice photos to save. And, no, I don’t know of any way to speed things along or to slow them down. The plants just have to reach a point in their maturity. As you can tell by their name, someone must have felt it took 100 years for them to mature and bloom, but the time frame is you have experienced is about normal; they generally flower when they’re 15 to 20 years old.
What you may not know is that the mother plant dies after it blooms. You will then see a cluster of “pups” coming up around each mother plant. You’ll probably have 15 or 20 sprouts per plant. You’ll need to remove the dead mother plant, then dig and give away most of the offsets. You can replant a few and start the process over again.