May Garden Calendar
Lawn
- Fertilize bluegrass and fescue with Ferti-lome Green Maker in late-May. If broadleaf weeds are a problem use Ferti-lome Weed Free Zone Plus Lawn Fertilizer to fertilize and control weeds at the same time.
- If you don’t want to fertilize: but need to control existing broadleaf weeds, use liquid Ferti-lome Weed Free Zone. Newly seeded lawns should be well established before treatment.
- Plant Bermuda lawns mid-May through July if needed.
- Sprig or plug Bermuda and zoysia lawns late-May through June.
- Fertilize Bermuda and zoysia lawns up to three times, May through August. Applications should be 30 days apart.
- Fertilize buffalo grass in mid-May to June. If making a second application, do so in July and August.
- Aerate warm-season grasses late-May through July.
Garden
- Plant tomatoes starting in late-April or early-May. Put the plant deep into the furrow until the soil covers half the stem. This allows roots to form along the buried portion of the stem. Fertilize with Fertilome Blooming and Rooting every two weeks
- Feed annuals every other week using Fertilome Rooting and Blooming.
- To encourage more blooming, remove the spent flowers on roses.
- Start feeding roses. Roses are heavy feeders. For large blooms, fertilize at least once a month.
- Watch roses for diseases and insects. Black Spots on the leaves are signs of a common fungal disease called Black Spot. Small, soft-bodied, green insects are most likely aphids.
Trees and Shrub
- Prune spring-flowering shrubs after their blooms have dropped.
- Watch for euonymus scale. Stems and underneath leaves become covered with white scales or brown bumps. Spray with dormant oil in the spring when the buds begin to open. In summer, spray during the crawler stage (when new eggs have hatched). Spray first in late-May to early-July. Spray again if needed in late-August to early-September.
- Symptoms of pine needle blight (dothistroma septospora) appear in late summer or early fall. Symptoms include green bands or yellow spots scattered on one-year-old needles. Spots enlarge into red bands that encircle the needle. Then the needle turns yellow from the band to the tip. To prevent pine needle blight, spray with Liquid Copper fungicide, first in mid-May and again in early-June. Austrian and ponderosa pines are the most susceptible.
- The larva of pine tip moths bore into the tip of the new candles on pines (mostly scotch and mugo pines.) If you see brown tips, twist them and see if there is a hollow tunnel with a small orange larva. There are generally three generations of the moth. First, from late-April to early-May. Second from June to early-July. Third from late-July to early-August.
