Archive for October, 2009
Marigolds and Nematodes
Down here on the Gulf Coast root knot nematodes can destroy gardens. Commonly people bring them home on tomato plants and once in the garden they are near impossible to eradicate.
I’ve been reading ‘Silent Spring’ in bits and pieces and tonight’s reading mentioned the use of marigolds as a treatment for root knot nematodes. After a bit of digging through old texts and online I discovered marigolds are still commonly used as a treatment for infected soils.
In ‘Silent Spring’ Rachael discusses success had planting marigolds among roses in some infected soil. Down here it’s your vegetable garden that is likely to be the problem.
The marigolds release alpha-terthienyl through the roots. The alpha-terthienyl is extremely toxic to nematodes, many insects and viruses. It works by preventing the hatching of the nematode eggs.
In addition, nematodes can not feed on marigold hosts, so you are also denying the nematodes food.
While you can always plant nematode resistant plants ( check for the N on the plant label ) Marigolds might be a nicer option.
Not all marigolds will prevent and harm root knot nematodes, do a bit of research first.
Varieties recommended for control of southern root knot nematode include: Tagetes patula, T. erecta, T. minuta.
More information:
Marigolds ( Tagetes spp. ) for Nematode Management
Fall cleanup time
It took a little less than 100 lawn and leaf bags, and 1 month but the gardens have been beaten back into submission for yet another year. In spring and more so in the fall I try to take the gardens from a really cool collection of plants to a fine landscaped garden.
I try to follow the basic landscape design rules for small spaces ( see below links ). This time I was lucky enough to attend a lecture by Nelson’s Water Gardens part way through my cleanup and picked up some more advice.
From Nelsons: Remove the mid range plants – keep the tall stuff, keep the low stuff, junk the middle stuff.
When in doubt I used the advice from Nelson’s and that helped.
Other new things I learned:
- Don’t let the sago go, rip those pups out immediately. The sago out front was a two day project all by itself.
Simple rules I use to cleanup
- Remove dead plants
- Remove plants that refuse to stand up straight
- Prune all trees up to 8′ high, remove all branched below that level.
- When in doubt, remove it
- Relocate any plant crowding other plants.
Tips:
- Gingers can be cut back to the ground in the fall or spring if you wish
- Take photos – landscape shots, not individual plants. I find I miss lots of things that are obvious when I take some time to look at the photos on the computer.
I still have to cleanup the yaupon clusters out back, but I’m just about done with this year’s big clean up.
10 landscape design tips for small spaces
10 more design tips for small spaces
Dying Pine Trees caused by beetle infestation
If you haven’t already noticed we’re losing lots of pine trees around here.
The Ips avulsus beetle population traditionally explodes after hurricanes, lightening, hail, tornadoes and other storms. Stressed trees are more susceptible to infestation. So this summers drought weakened trees are especially prone to infestations.
The beetles are tiny, about the size of a tick. Ips beetles live about a month. They burrow under the bark and lay eggs in the tree. As they eat the tree they leave behind a bluestain fungus (Ceratocystis ips). It is this fungus that blocks water transport through the tree and kills it.
Infected trees can be seen by their dying pine needles, and a reddish brown dust appears around holes that the beetles drill into the trees.
Remove infected trees immediately. There aren’t any practical treatments for these beetles once trees are infected.
