Question: Some of the local areas have very tall trees blooming with bright yellow flowers. What is a tree? Is it a good addition to the landscape as it gets so tall?
Answer: The large landscape has room for the peltophorus, also known as the Yellow Poinciana. Locally planted specimens have fern-like leaves that can grow to 50 feet tall and wide. If added to the landscape, it is known to have weak wood, so it is placed away from the building. Trees are best trained into a single trunk, as multiple trunk trees can fall apart. Locally, the peltophorum blooms from late spring to early July. Once established, the tree is drought resistant and grows in most well-drained soils. They are cold throughout the warmer areas of central Florida.
Q. Our Mexican petunia have a white covering on the leaves that look like snow. Is it harmful to plants?
A. In this hot climate, damage from teenage mites is not caused by snow. Even if you look hard, you may not yet be able to see such a small eriophyid mites. These arcnides stimulate Mexican petunia and produce a white cotton covering of surface leaf hair as protection. These are sharp feeders that can reduce plant vitality and lead to lowering leaves. You can get controls with gardening oil spray or insecticide soap. Heavy invasions may have been pruned from the plant and then sprayed. If you use sprays in hot summer weather, be sure to pay attention to temperature precautions.
Q. I’ve never seen so many slugs on the sidewalk or driveway. Are slugs beneficial?
A. Slimy slugs are the kind of scary creatures we often want to avoid. However, slugs are beneficial omnivores that feed the degradation of algae, fungi, organic matter and plants. If they are out of sight and don’t bother the plants, you’ll probably leave them alone. We are looking for control when they start devouring plants in our garden. If only a few slugs are attracting attention, they can be collected and dropped into friction alcohol. One of the tricks to capture slugs is to place the board next to the crops in the row and check the underside of the morning to collect slugs. It is also hidden beneath pots, pavements and other landscape items. If necessary, food can be used to scatter near affected plants. Look for natural phosphate-containing baits. Also, most people have heard of beer tricks. In my opinion, it’s a waste of good beer, but the shallow trays added to the garden seem to encourage slugs to craze and be happy.
Plant Doctor: Easy Steps to Get Myentre in Your Crepes and Make More Flowers
Q. I have a small backyard where grass can’t survive, so I put in the Dwarf Mondo – it’s perfect. The problem is that the clover is growing and is extremely difficult to remove. Is there any control for this weed?
A. Sorry, you’re going to pull this weed out of the mondgrass. The photo in your email showed weeds that look like clover, which is actually Schwys or yellow woodsorre. After the flower seed capsules were produced, they burst to distribute the seeds everywhere, so it’s better to get this from planting when you first look at them. Adding a very light pine bark fine mulch to planting will prevent seeds from germinating and prevent new weed plants from pulling. Luckily, when mondgrass planting is dense, all types of weeds are not an issue.
Q. I’ve been getting some kind of pink web for tomato plants. Whatever it is, whatever it is, it sucks out the colour from the leaves and leaves them with a silver finish. I have been trying to wash them off using a strong spray from the garden hose, but the web is coming back. Would you recommend anything?
A. Very closely, there are small pink spider mites in the web. These spiders seem to smoke juice from tomato plants and build up all of a sudden, large, uncontrollable population. When you get attention on the important web, it’s usually too late to save on planting. If only light webbing is found, the mites may work using a strong water spray. But they build up a group again. A pesticide soap that wets mites can be an effective control, but it should be applied when the mites are first noticed. Sulfur-containing sprays are also used, giving you some control, but if not applied according to the label’s instructions, the plant can be burned. Sulfur is often found as one of the natural pesticide ingredients in gardens.
July in the gardens of Central Florida
Q. My pineapple plant grows about 3 feet tall and has only one fruit. Can you reduce the leaves to reduce the size?
A. Remove some leaves and trimming some other tips will probably not affect your plant or the fruits that should ripen in August. However, remember that leaves produce food for your plants, and that too much or too much can affect growth and fruit quality. If it’s my plant, I’ll leave as many leaves as possible to produce your one fruit. Each main shoot of the pineapple plant produces one fruit at a time. Once some shoots grow, you can get multiple fruits that often occur in older plants.
Q. Whitefly has influenced some of our landscape plants, and soot molds have been formed on the leaves. How can I control them?
A. One natural solution to white fries and soot-based mold is a gardening oil spray found at a local garden center. To be effective, the spray should cover immature stages. The rinse mold will fall off as the spray gradually controls the white fly. Another control is one of the systemic insecticides available from the Garden Center. Follow the label as some may apply to the leaves and others may apply to the soil. Neither oil nor whole body insecticides immediately control adult white irrigation. In many cases, repeated applications are required to label instructions.
Tom Maccubbin is an honorary urban gardener at the University of Florida Cooperative Expansion Services. Write him: Orlando Sentinel, PO Box 2833, Orlando, Florida. 32802. email: tomac1996@aol.com.
